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Paul Lockhart Biography

Paul Scott "Paco" Lockhart (born April 28, 1956) is an American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force Colonel and NASA astronaut, a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions.

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Paul Lockhart Quotes

So how does one go about proving something like this? It's not like being a lawyer, where the goal is to persuade other people; nor is it like a scientist testing a theory. This is a unique art form within the world of rational science. We are trying to craft a "poem of reason" that explains fully and clearly and satisfies the pickiest demands of logic, while at the same time giving us goosebumps.

Art, Math, Science, Time, Unique

Mathematics is about problems, and problems must be made the focus of a student's mathematical life. Painful and creatively frustrating as it may be, students and their teachers should at all times be engaged in the process - having ideas, not having ideas, discovering patterns, making conjectures, constructing examples and counterexamples, devising arguments, and critiquing each other's work.

Discovering, Ideas, Math, Patterns, Teacher, Times

Teaching is not about information. It's about having an honest intellectual relationship with your students. It requires no method, no tools, and no training. Just the ability to be real. And if you can't be real, then you have no right to inflict yourself upon innocent children.

Ability, Children, Honest, Method, Real, Teaching

Mathematics is not a language, it's an adventure

Adventure, Language, Mathematics

Why don't we want our children to learn to do mathematics? Is it that we don't trust them, that we think it's too hard? We seem to feel that they are capable of making arguments and coming to their own conclusions about Napoleon. Why not about triangles?

Capable, Children, Learn, Math, Thinking, Trust

[Math is] not at all like science. There's no experiment I can do with test tubes and equipment and whatnot that will tell me the truth about a figment of my imagination. The only way to get at the truth about our imaginations is to use our imaginations.

Figment, Imagination, Math, Tubes, Use, Whatnot

I don't see how it's doing society any good to have so many members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams and clear memories of hating them.

Algebraic, Clear, Diagrams, Hate, Members, Memories

Doing mathematics should always mean finding patterns and crafting beautiful and meaningful explanations.

Beautiful, Crafting, Explanations, Math, Meaningful

A good problem is something you don't know how to solve. That's what makes it a good puzzle and a good opportunity.

Know, Opportunity, Problem, Solve

If teaching is reduced to mere data transmission, if there is no sharing or excitement and wonder, if teachers themselves are passive recipients of information and not creators of new ideas, what hope is there for their students?

Data, Excitement, Hope, Teacher, Teachers, Teaching

Mental acuity of any kind comes from solving problems yourself, not from being told how to solve them.

Kind, Math, Problem, Solve, Solving

There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics. It is every bit as mind blowing as cosmology or physics (mathematicians conceived of black holes long before astronomers actually found any), and allows more freedom of expression than poetry, art, or music (which depends heavily on properties of the physical universe). Mathematics is the purest of the arts, as well as the most misunderstood.

Art, Expression, Long, Mathematics, Psychedelic, Purest

The mathematical question is "Why?" It's always why. And the only way we know how to answer such questions is to come up, from scratch, with these narrative arguments that explain it. So what I want to do with this book is open up this world of mathematical reality, the creatures that we build there, the questions that we ask there, the ways in which we poke and prod (known as problems), and how we can possibly craft these elegant reason-poems.

Book, Education, Math, Open, Poke, Ways

No mathematician in the world would bother making these senseless distinctions: 2 1
2 is a "mixed number " while 5
2 is an "improper fraction. " They're EQUAL for crying out loud. They are the exact same numbers and have the exact same properties. Who uses such words outside of fourth grade?

Equal, Exact, Grade, Math, Numbers, Use

There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics.

Dreamy, Mathematics, Poetic, Psychedelic, Subversive

The only thing I am interested in using mathematics for is to have a good time and to help others do the same.

Good Times, Help, Helping Others, Interested, Math, Using

[Math] curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with something to test the students on.

Jargon, Math, Nomenclature, Students, Teacher

Paul Lockhart Biography

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