Rereading Lockhart's Lament, as it will be the first assigned reading for my upcoming History of Maths honors class. I forgot how savage this was, and how unfortunately real.
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Replying to @stevenstrogatz @TChihMath
Lockhart's "Lament" in fact paints far too rosy a picture of the actual situation, as he himself now admits. It's no longer merely a case of the blind misleading the blind, or of institutionalized ignorance and incompetence. Now it's more like torture by senseless tedium.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @TChihMath
Interesting. Where does Lockhart admit that? Curious to see his exact wording. Thanks.
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Replying to @stevenstrogatz @TChihMath
I'd suggest simply talking with him about it (as I have done, often.) His attitude now can perhaps best be described as one of almost post-apocalyptic pessimism. He sees no hope of any meaningful change until and unless both our culture and systems of governance change radically.
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Generally speaking, the people who understand Paul best are the (very few) research mathematicians who've spent many years teaching K-12 math to real kids in real-world classrooms (e.g., Franz Lemmermeyer, and the great Al Cuoco.) They are, to a man, extremely pessimistic.
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