A Mathematician's Lament

It’s a short story that critiques how the current schooling system teaches math—robotic and algorithmic—which leads to few people being interested in math, many people hating it, and in the end, not much being learned. The author instead proposes teaching math more like a creative art form, where techniques and problems are set in a historical context, and problems are explored more playfully. This approach encourages students to come up with their own solutions, rather than simply using a prepared proof structure or applying a shown method.