Mathematics is not about answers, it’s about processes.”
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From an essay called “What Math?,” which discusses the problems in math education. I think it gets at the central problem with our math education: math should be taught as a way of looking at the world (similar to great literature or philosophy), and instead it’s taught as a process useful for calculating the interest on a car loan or factoring out roots from an equation.
I didn’t get it until calculus, when the connection with physics started to click and suddenly I saw looking at the world in terms of how it changes as a really powerful way of thinking — what was sad is how little this sort of perspective had ever been suggested in the 11 years that lead to calculus.
