Mathematician's Lament

Paul Lockhart became interested in mathematics when he was 14 (outside the classroom, he points out). He dropped out of college after one semester to devote himself exclusively to math. Based on his own research he was admitted to Columbia, received a PhD, and has taught at major universities. Since 2000 he has dedicated himself to "subversively" teaching grade-school math.

“One of the best critiques of current K-12 mathematics education I have ever seen, written by a first-class research mathematician who elected to devote his teaching career to K-12 education.” —Keith Devlin, NPR’s “Math Guy”“Gorgeous. . . . Lockhart is passionate, contagiously so.” —Los Angeles Times“Searing and pointed. . . . An easy, thoughtful, and entertaining read. . . . [Lockhart’s] passion makes the critique compelling.” —Notices of the American Mathematical Society“Provides a fresh way of thinking about math, and education in general, that should inspire practical applications in the classroom and at home.” —Publishers Weekly“A Mathematician’s Lament is a fascinating argument that anyone interested in mathematics education should read. I promise that they will enjoy the experience, whether they agree with all that Lockhart writes or not.” —Bryan Bunch, author of The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide“This brief and elegant celebration of mathematics is a charming rant against the way you and I learned the subject. Is painting just coloring in numbered regions? Is the sunset just a list of wavelengths and a compass setting? No more, Lockhart argues, than mathematics is just definitions and formulas. To put back play and joy in our mathematics classrooms, he shows, all we need do is restore the real mathematics.” —Robert P. Crease, author of The Great Equations: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg“Lockhart has written an important, and eloquent, lamentation and exultation: he laments about the state of math education today, but exults in the hope that teachers might be inspired to invite students to experience mathematics as the exciting ‘poetry of ideas’ that it truly is.” —Barry Mazur, Gerhard Gade University Professor, Harvard University and author of Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)