Reflections
Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “we need higher standards.”
The schools say, “we need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right. – From ‘A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form’ by Paul Lockhart
Read more here (pdf). Who is Paul Lockhart? you ask.
” . . .Paul became interested in mathematics when he was about 14 (outside of the school math class, he points out) and read voraciously, becoming especially interested in analytic number theory. He dropped out of college after one semester to devote himself to math, supporting himself by working as a computer programmer and as an elementary school teacher. Eventually he started working with Ernst Strauss at UCLA, and the two published a few papers together. Strauss introduced him to Paul Erdos, and they somehow arranged it so that he became a graduate student there. He ended up getting a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1990, and went on to be a fellow at MSRI and an assistant professor at Brown. He also taught at UC Santa Cruz. His main research interests were, and are, automorphic forms and Diophantine geometry.
After several years teaching university mathematics, Paul eventually tired of it and decided he wanted to get back to teaching children. He secured a position at Saint Ann’s School (in Brooklyn), where he says “I have happily been subversively teaching mathematics (the real thing) since 2000.”
He teaches all grade levels at Saint Ann’s (K-12), and says he is especially interested in bringing a mathematician’s point of view to very young children. “I want them to understand that there is a playground in their minds and that that is where mathematics happens. So far I have met with tremendous enthusiasm among the parents and kids, less so among the mid-level administrators” . . .” - From here.
Wikipedia has this to say about the academic program at Saint Ann’s:
The school’s program for the arts includes Costume Making and Design, Printmaking, Architecture and Design, Figure Drawing, African Dance, Modern Dance, Film Production, Intensive Acting, Technical Theater and Play Production, Puppetry, Playwriting, Voice and more. Academically, Saint Ann’s is extremely strong: the school allows its high school juniors and seniors to essentially design their own curricula. Furthermore, in a 2004 survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal, Saint Ann’s was rated the number one high school in the country (for having the highest percentage of graduating seniors enrolling in Ivy League and other highly selective colleges).[2] In late 2007, the Wall Street Journal again listed Saint Ann’s as one of the world’s top 50 schools for its success in preparing students to enter top American universities.[3] (My highlights.)