Category: education

New 3QD-column: Tatiana Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa and Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis on intuition and abstract thought in math class.

“Am I ever going to use this later?” As a math teacher, I seem to be getting this question about once a month (which is actually less frequently than I would have predicted). It is asked with varying degrees of openness to the idea that a satisfying reply is even conceivable, but almost invariably by students who are probably justified in believing that their tertiary education or future career is going to involve preciously few linear equations indeed.

See here.

Paul Lockhart starts his “Mathematician’s Lament” (later expanded into a book under the same title, but I’ll be discussing the shorter article here) by comparing math class to a misshapen music or art class. Suppose that in music class, enjoying actual music is supposed to be too advanced for children, so they are made to start with memorizing the circle of fifths and pointing the stems of quarter-notes the right way; or suppose that in art class, painting is postponed until after preparatory “Paint-by-Numbers” classes. This, Lockhart suggests, is how math class works; it stifles creativity and natural curiosity and therefore goes against the spirit of mathematics.

Continue reading “Math as an Art Paul Lockhart’s Mathematician’s Lament“

Ger Groot schreef deze week in Trouw een opiniestuk naar aanleiding van een eerder artikel in Trouw (6 april, p. 7 van de Verdieping) van Hanne Obbink over de profielkeuze van middelbare scholieren.

Kort gezegd sluit die profielkeuze steeds meer aan bij het stereotype dat C&M een profiel is voor losers dat ook daadwerkelijk studiemogelijkheden afsluit, en is N&T het profiel dat je doet als je slim bent en dat alle deuren opent – inclusief talen en cultuurstudies, die beter lijken aan te sluiten bij C&M. Dat leidt ertoe dat leerlingen steeds vaker de N-profielen kiezen als het maar even kan.

Continue reading “Lof van het gedisciplineerde denken”