[SamuelMulder]

Good for you!

"The difference between good at math and bad at math is hard work. It’s trying. It’s trying hard. It’s trying harder than you’ve ever tried before. That’s it."

I love this quote. I think that nails it. When you see someone run a marathon, you don't think they are just naturally good at exercise, you recognize that they've put in a lot of hard work.

I think the value of hard work is under appreciated. Thanks for writing this.

[dwaltrip]

I think the main problem is kids aren't taught abstract problem solving, and don't learn how to process the deep concepts that you find in math. This is largely due to our rigid, rote memorization math teaching methods (here is formula x, here are the type of problems formula x can be applied to, now do this pracitce set with 100 of them, and so on).

The majority of math currently taught k-12 is also largely useless to most students who don't go into hard sciences. This time would be better spent learning math as an art. They could struggle with problems without knowing the formulas ahead of time. They could modify the axioms and see where that leads. And so on, working their way through the different areas of math, and actually internalizing the concepts. In high school, the curriculim would include a life skills: arithmetic/statistics class, to ensure that day to day practical math skills are learned.

There was a really good paper on HN a few months about math as an art form which influenced my thinking in this regard.

[SamuelMulder]

I agree completely. I'm working on a curriculum just like this :)