Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > This paper seems like a pretty accurate description of everything that
> > is wrong with mathematical teaching, and society at large.

> Although it did leave me wondering for a moment: Am I actually "good at 
> math"? Or am I just good at following directions?

  Perhaps it could be compared to computer algorithms: If you are given
a computational problem for which you need to create an efficient algorithm,
how good are you at coming up with such an algorithm? (Of course this
requires quite a bit of both knowledge and experience in algorithmical
programming. Eg. you need to have knowledge about computational complexities,
have developed a kind of "computational complexity instinct", have experience
on different problems and their solutions, have the experience and talent to
come up with either modified or brand new solutions to the given problem,
and so on.)

  If you routinely can devise efficient algorithms for given computational
problems, then one could say that you are good at algorithmic programming.
Likewise I'd say that if you routinely can solve mathematical problems,
devise mathematical formulas to describe things and so on, you are good
at math.

  Anybody can calculate 2+2 or even solve an equation, in the same way
as anybody can write a "hello world" program or a program which calculates
the sum of a list of numbers, but that doesn't make that someone *good* at
math/programming.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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