Response to Lockhart's Lament

    I truly agree with the point that Lockhart made about the professionalism and passion for math teachers. He stated that math teachers should “at least understand what mathematics is, be good at it, and enjoy doing it” (p.11). I believe my least favourite teacher did not meet the standard here - giving away arithmetic worksheets was all her job. Another related experience for me was in a university geometry course. The professor went to a conference and invited his colleague to be a substitute instructor for two weeks. Nevertheless, since the colleague actuarially knew nothing about the topic, all he could do is presenting and reading content from slides. There was no doubt that he was a mathematician and must be an expert in his study area, but he could not be a good teacher for me for this course.

    I do think math is beautiful and it is an art. However, I disagree with Lockhart’s idea of equalizing math with other art subjects. He thought that if students could work on difficult topics such as Shakespeare in English, then they should also be capable of creating math by themselves. He argued that “the problem is not that the students can’t handle it, it’s that none of the teachers can” (p 17). In this case, he ignored another big problem: the amount of basic knowledge required for people to freely play with the subject. The main reason that students can interpret Shakespeare in secondary school is that they had already developed a solid language foundation: they practice reading and writing skills every day in their daily life. In contrast, math is not only an art but also a science. Similar to other science subjects, it heavily relies on assumptions or definitions and most importantly, it is developing. To memorize, understand and interpret these “prerequisites”, people need to put in all their effort for a long time. As a result, it is reasonable that students in the secondary level are not “capable of operating on such a high level” (p 17) for math. In other words, even if all math teachers are able to create their own math, it is also hard for secondary school students to achieve a high-level standard like this.