MoMath founder, on math’s image problem…
Glen Whitney, founder of MoMath, makes interesting comments on the image issue common in Mathematics education today (article source from Smartplanet);
And you’re the only math museum in North America.
That’s correct.
Sounds like Germany really likes math.
Well, there’s a very distinguished history of mathematics there. It’s likely that the museums are a reflection of the cultural stance on mathematics there. There are also math museums in South Korea, Italy, Spain, Japan, Budapest, and one is forming in Brazil.
You said earlier that math is misunderstood in the U.S. How so?
In the roughly 2,000 hours of math instruction you get in traditional K-12 school, you get a non-representative view of what mathematics as a human enterprise is like. You learn that every problem has a specific method, and it’s just a matter of matching up the problem to the method. If you follow that recipe, you will get the one correct answer. There’s no sense of creativity or imagination or beauty or exploration. I think exploration is at the core of what mathematics is as an enterprise.
There’s also this impression that math is utterly linear. If you reach an obstacle — whether it’s something you find difficult or just don’t like — under the linear model of math, you’re done. You can’t proceed. Math must not be for you. That image is wrong. Mathematics is actually extremely bushy. There are so many different areas, and there’s no need for people to feel that if they don’t like one area, then they don’t like math at all.