education

sciences
Commentary
Teach the Mathematics of Mathematicians
Peter Taylor
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen’s University, Kingston ON, K7L 3N6, Canada;
[email protected]; Tel.: +1-613-533-2434




Received: 28 February 2018; Accepted: 13 April 2018; Published: 20 April 2018


Abstract: The secondary-school mathematics curriculum is narrow in scope and technical in character;
this is quite different from the nature of the discipline itself. As a result, it offers little inspiration to
both students and teachers, and provides students with poor preparation for university mathematics
courses and indeed for life. Over the past century, recently more than ever, there have been calls
for change, for a curriculum that is true to the subject of mathematics as the creation and study
of patterns and structures. While there are hopeful responses to this at the elementary level, there
is almost nothing at the secondary level. Ironically, it is felt that in order to prepare students for
university calculus, the secondary curriculum simply has to be what it is. This is a special case of a
myth that needs to be destroyed.

Keywords: secondary school; mathematics curriculum; structure; aesthetics; experience

1. Statement of the Myth

Mathematics is a central discipline in the school curriculum. As a consequence, it is important
that the teaching and learning of mathematics be held to a high standard. However, it has frequently
been remarked that in our K–12 school system, this high standard is not generally met. There are two
aspects of this. One focuses on student knowledge and performance—students seem to have little
knowledge of the subject and can do very little with what they do have [1] (Chapter 5). The other
concerns the student experience. Mathematics is a subject full of wonder and beauty, but students in
secondary school rarely experience that [2,3].
Interestingly, it is concern about the first that has led to the second. Worry about student
knowledge and performance has led to the construction of a curriculum that is narrow in scope
and technical in character. There is little room for wonder and beauty in such a design.
In my own teaching experience, I find this problem to be particularly pronounced at the secondary
level. In elementary school, the curriculum is more open, more flexible, and there is more time for
“play,” certainly in the hands of a mathematically “playful” teacher. At university, the overall agenda is
the encounter with “real” mathematics, where wonder and beauty is there for the “taking,” but again
this needs a mathematically “giving” teacher. However, at the secondary level the emphasis seems to
me to be quite definitely on the preparation of students for college and university, most particularly for
calculus, and for some reason we have interpreted that mandate at a purely technical level. Hanna [4]
(p. 20) tracks some of the origins of this.
Why have we settled for such a sterile experience for our students and our teachers? This is
justified, explicitly or implicitly, by the claim that our hand is forced by the nature of the discipline—that
in mathematics a sufficient technical base must be put in place before the “real” subject can be tackled.
In this regard, mathematics is different from other disciplines such as biology, history, English and
the creative arts; in those subjects the student can learn by playing with the same kinds of questions,
structures and works of art that the professionals work with and talk about. This is not the case in
mathematics. This brings us to the statement of the myth.

Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56; doi:10.3390/educsci8020056 www.mdpi.com/journal/education

Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 2 of 10

The Myth. The narrow technical character of the school math curriculum is a necessary
consequence of the nature of the subject itself. The curricula of other subjects are based on the
investigation, discussion and enjoyment of sophisticated questions, narratives and creative works
of interest to professionals in the field. Analogous works exist in mathematics but these are not yet
accessible to school students. The reasons for this are found in what is a fundamental difference in
nature between mathematics and other disciplines.

2. The Community of Disciplines

My objective here is to situate mathematics as a member of a community of disciplines, and I begin
by asking what exactly mathematics is. G.H. Hardy, in his 1940 “apology” for being a mathematician,
said [5] (p. 40), “A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are
more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.” Since that time, there have been
many restatements of this idea; mine is that mathematics is the abstract study and creation of structure.
Of course Hardy need not have stopped at painters and poets; any scholar or analyst, from literary
criticism to neuroscience to urban design, is engaged in the study and creation of structure. What sets
mathematics apart is the abstract level at which it works—it studies structure for its own sake. That is
what gives it both its purity and sense of beauty, and its unexpectedly wide applicability to the many
different kinds of questions we ask about the world we live in. I recall that, as a young man, it was this
purity that attracted me to mathematics.
Structures can be simple or complex. Some mathematical structures, for example the
multiplication of integers or fractions, are fairly simple, though still quite rich. Others are more
complex or sophisticated, and multiplication offers a good example of this in its generalization to
integers modulo n, complex numbers, transformations and ultimately group theory.
Sophisticated structures are hard to understand; to work productively with them requires a lot
of what is often called “play”—kicking around different kinds of concrete realizations, looking at
things from different angles, extracting components to see how they fit together. To succeed in such
play, you have to be able to hold in your mind and work with a number of different things at once
(it has been suggested that in mathematics this number might be as high as five). Now, to manage that,
you cannot keep track of everything in your conscious mind, and that means you have to make certain
things “automatic.” Think of a juggler keeping five balls in the air. The conscious mind must keep
track of some aspects of the five trajectories, but it certainly cannot handle them all; hours of practice
are needed to internalize the routine. What is the nature of that practice? Quite simply, you learn to
juggle by juggling—perhaps with fewer balls.
What is true for juggling is true of any discipline that works with sophisticated structures, and
that pretty well covers all the fields of study in today’s academic landscape. In our high schools we
see this in almost every classroom. In biology class they talk about the complex ecological effects
of deforestation; in history class they discuss the reasons for the decline of empires, in drama they
study Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and in English they read Wuthering Heights, all activities that work with a
sophisticated structure and are of great interest to professionals in the discipline. But this is not what
things look like in the math classroom. Jo Boaler reflects on this dichotomy:

There are other indications that math is different from all other subjects. When we ask
students what math is, they will typically give descriptions that are very different from
those given by experts in the field. Students will typically say it is a subject of calculations,
procedures, or rules. But when we ask mathematicians what math is, they will say it is
the study of patterns that is an aesthetic, creative, and beautiful subject. Why are these
descriptions so different? When we ask students of English literature what the subject is,
they do not give descriptions that are markedly different from what professors of English
literature would say [3] (pp. 21–22).
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 3 of 10

Her juxtaposition of English and mathematics works well for me, as in the school curriculum these are
the
Educ.two disciplines
Sci. 2018, 8, x FOR that
PEERsit at the centre of the school program. English also has a strong generative
REVIEW 3 of 10
component typically lacking in school mathematics. Students in English understand that they are
expected to write creatively,
creatively, but
but in
in math
math class
class they will
will claim
claim that it is unfair
unfair to be asked to solve a
problem they have not seen
problem they have not seen before. before. To discover why
discover why these two subjects
subjects differ inin such
such aa significant
significant
manner,
manner, II take
take aa closer
closer look
look at
at the
the nature
nature of
ofthe
thehigh
highschool
schoolmathematics
mathematicscurriculum.
curriculum.

3.
3. The
The High
High School
School Math
Math Curriculum
Curriculum
It
It is
is not
not hard
hard to to get
get aa sense
sense of
of the
the nature
nature ofof the
the high
high school
school math
math curriculum.
curriculum. One
One can
can sit
sit in
in aa
classroom for a few periods, or read a few sections in one of the many textbooks, or consult
classroom for a few periods, or read a few sections in one of the many textbooks, or consult the officialthe official
curriculum
curriculum document.
document. All All such
such documents
documents begin
begin with
with general
general discussions
discussions of
of process,
process, but
but the realized
the realized
curriculum
curriculum is is more
more often
often what
what is
is detailed
detailed in
in the
the specific
specific expectations
expectations and
and examples.
examples. In
In Figure
Figure 11 II give
give
an example of this.
an example of this.

Ontario Grade 12 Advanced Functions

3.3 Solve problems, using a variety of tools and strategies, including problems arising
from real-world applications, by reasoning with functions and by applying concepts
and procedures involving functions (e.g., by constructing a function model from data,
using the model to determine mathematical results, and interpreting and
communicating the results within the context of the problem).
Sample Problem. The pressure of a car tire with a slow leak is given in the following
table of values:
Time, t (min) Pressure, P (kPa)
0 400
5 335
10 295
15 255
20 225
25 195
30 170

Use technology to investigate linear, quadratic, and exponential models for the
relationship, of the tire pressure and time, and describe how well each model fits the
data. Use each model to predict the pressure after 60 min. Which model gives the
most realistic answer?

Figure
Figure 1. An activity
1. An activity taken
taken from
from the
the Ontario
Ontario Grade
Grade 12
12 Advanced
Advanced Functions
Functions curriculum
curriculum [6]
[6] (pp.
(pp. 97–98).
97–98).

Clearly, aa mathematician
Clearly, mathematician would
would never simply “use technology to investigate linear, quadratic,
and exponential models for this relationship.” Rather, Rather, he
he or
or she
she would begin by thinking about how
data were
the data were generated
generated andand what
what physical
physical processes
processes were
were atat work.
work. In fact, that thinking
thinking leads to
quite a wonderful
quite a wonderful story and as a way of seeing what is missing in the Ministry description, II will
as a way of seeing what is missing in the Ministry description, will
summarize it. it.
turns out that my then
It turns then PhD student,
student, Nathalie Sinclair,
Sinclair, and
and II generated
generated that
that very
very data
data in
in 1998
1998
in aa Grade
Grade 12 class
class [7]. First of all, the data were taken by the students themselves
themselves from a real tire.
from a real
They pumped
They pumped the thetire
tireup,
up,drilled
drilledthe
thehole,
hole,and
andmonitored
monitored the
the fall
fall of of pressure
pressure over,
over, notnot 30 min,
30 min, butbut
an
an entire
entire hour.
hour. WhatWhatdiddid
wewedodo
forfor
thatthat hour?We
hour? We talkedabout
talked aboutwhat
whatmight
mightbe
begoing
goingon onand
and how
how you
you
might build a model for the emerging dataset, and that took us into a discussion discussion of the shape of the
curve. Even during the first 10 min, when we had only three data data points, wewe had
had aa discussion
discussion about
about
whether we should get a straight line or a curve that would get flatter as time went on. That brought
us up against this mysterious concept of air pressure. We could “feel it” clearly enough by putting
our fingers against the hole, but how were we to mathematize it? We finally agreed that this pressure
should be less when there was less air inside “pushing” the air out, but how on earth might we get a
precise hold on this apparently complex phenomenon?
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 4 of 10

whether we should get a straight line or a curve that would get flatter as time went on. That brought
us up against this mysterious concept of air pressure. We could “feel it” clearly enough by putting
our fingers against the hole, but how were we to mathematize it? We finally agreed that this pressure
should
Educ. Sci. be less
2018, 8, xwhen there
FOR PEER was less air inside “pushing” the air out, but how on earth might we 4get
REVIEW a
of 10
precise hold on this apparently complex phenomenon?
Because of that perplexing discussion,discussion, they
they were
were ripe to be surprised [8]. We suggested that it
was perhaps not complicated at all, but that the molecules of air were simply scooting around the
inside of the tire, bouncing off whenever whenever they they hit the inner surface
surface of the tire, except for those rare
cases in which they encountered the hole instead and then they passed right through into the outside
air. So the pressure against the finger was simply the normal punch of the speeding molecules that
escaped fromfrom thethetire.
tire.With
Withthatthatmemorable
memorable clarifying
clarifying insight,
insight, thethe students
students werewere
readyready to observe
to observe that
that the flow
the flow rate rate
mustmust be proportional
be proportional to number
to the the number of molecules
of molecules inside
inside the tire,
the tire, leading
leading directly
directly to
to the
𝑡
the exponential
exponential model P=𝑃
model Ar=t . 𝐴𝑟 . To evaluate
To evaluate the parameters
the parameters A andAr and r we use
we could could usetoExcel
Excel todataset
fit the fit the
dataset
with an with an exponential
exponential curve, butcurve,
this but this is
is really really
too goodtooangood an opportunity
opportunity not
not to use to use
a log a log
plot. Weplot.
take We
the
take the logarithm
logarithm of theand
of the P-data P-data
plotandthatplot that time
against against
andtime
whatand
wewhat we get (Figure
get (Figure 2) is atreat.
2) is a visual visual treat.

and its
Figure 2. Plot of tire pressure and its logarithm
logarithm against
against time.
time

The
The straight
straight line
line in
in Figure
Figure 22 is is aa visual
visual verification
verification of of our
our exponential
exponential model,
model, one one that
that aa simple
simple
exponential fit would not accomplish nearly so well. It is all the more memorable
exponential fit would not accomplish nearly so well. It is all the more memorable for being generated for being generated
by
by the students’ own
the students’ own hands.
hands. At At this
this point
point we we could
could (and
(and eventually
eventually did) did) fit
fit aa linear
linear equation
equation to to the
the
data and exponentiate that to arrive at the P-equation. As I recall, though, even
data and exponentiate that to arrive at the P-equation. As I recall, though, even before that, I printed before that, I printed
out
out aa copy
copy of
of the
the logP-graph,
logP-graph, gavegave the the students
students rulers
rulers and
and had
had them
them estimate
estimate thethe slope
slope andand intercept
intercept
and
and construct from these an equation for the line. When they exponentiated that, they had constructed
construct from these an equation for the line. When they exponentiated that, they had constructed
aa truly
truly “hands-on” version of
“hands-on” version of the
the P-equation.
P-equation.
What
What had this activity,
had this activity, which
which occupied
occupied two two 75-min
75-min classclass periods,
periods, accomplished?
accomplished? It It gave the
gave the
students
students a hands-on engagement with a sophisticated structure, talking about it, engaging it in
a hands-on engagement with a sophisticated structure, talking about it, engaging it in
different ways, and performing a mathematical analysis. Of most importance
different ways, and performing a mathematical analysis. Of most importance it was an activity that a it was an activity that
amathematician
mathematicianwouldwouldfind findinteresting
interestingand andititbegan
beganwith
withthe thequestion
question that
that the
the mathematician
mathematician would would
first
first ask: what exactly is going on here? There is a sense in which the problem in Figure
ask: what exactly is going on here? There is a sense in which the problem in Figure 11 does
does invite
invite
the
the reader
reader to investigate which
to investigate which model
model mightmight be be more
more “realistic,”
“realistic,” but
but the
the set-up
set-up and and thethe context
context are
are
completely misleading, and it would require an unusual teacher, with
completely misleading, and it would require an unusual teacher, with experience, time and additional experience, time and
additional
resources, toresources,
constructtofromconstruct
the given fromactivity
the given activity
a truly a truly mathematical
mathematical investigation. investigation.

4.
4. The
The Wisdom
Wisdom of
of the Past
the Past
To understand what
To understand what to
to do
do with
with all
all this,
this, II need
need to
to connect
connect these
these ideas
ideas with
with the
the writings
writings that
that have
have
most influenced
influenced my
my teaching
teaching life.
life.IIbegin
beginwith
withAlfred
AlfredNorth
NorthWhitehead,
Whitehead,whose
whose1929
1929 book
book The
The Aims
Aims of
of Education was the bible throughout my early teaching
Education was the bible throughout my early teaching years. years.
There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.
Instead of this single unity, we offer children—Algebra, from which nothing follows;
Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from
which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of
all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 5 of 10

There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations. Instead
of this single unity, we offer children—Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from
which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing
follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature,
represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and
character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life
as it is known in the midst of the living of it? [9] (pp. 6–7)
Here Whitehead is clearly not denigrating algebra or the plays of Shakespeare, but he despairs of the
narrow technical version that typically dominates the classroom. Whitehead certainly understands
the critical role that technical mastery plays in learning and indeed in any creative enterprise, but
it must be properly situated in what he calls the Rhythm of Education [9] (Chapter II). There he
identifies three stages of learning: Romance, Precision and Generalization. To some extent, all our
learning proceeds through these stages in order, such that, roughly speaking, the child is dominated
by Romance, the youth by Precision, and the adult by Generalization. In practice, however, the stages
cycle continuously like eddies in the fast-flowing stream of life (and indeed at different times we can
all be children or adults).
The first stage of Romance is one of ferment, novelty and mystery, of hidden possibilities and
barely justifiable leaps. This stage, in its fullness, motivates the second stage, in which we strive
for comprehension and mastery—ideas must be tamed and organized, requiring care, honesty and
restraint. Finally, the third stage is essentially a return to Romance, but now with the technique
acquired at stage two. Our ideas have new power because we have harnessed them. The great fruit of
this ultimate stage of learning is wisdom: the capacity to handle knowledge. The central point that
Whitehead makes is that the discipline of stage two must not be imposed until the fullness of stage
one has properly prepared the student. Failing that, the knowledge that is obtained will be inert and
ineffective. That often seems to be the case for the knowledge that students bring into my first-year
university course.
I now turn to John Dewey; among his influential writings, it is his 1934 book, Art as Experience,
that for me has unlocked the mysteries of education. Here, Dewey constructs an entire theory of the
aesthetic around individual experience; in effect he calls us to be artists in all our interactions, and the
canvas upon which we paint is our own experience.
The word “aesthetic” refers, as we have already noted, to experience as appreciative,
perceiving and enjoying. It denotes the consumer’s rather than the producer’s standpoint.
It is Gusto, taste; and, as with cooking, overt skillful action is on the side of the cook who
prepares, while taste is on the side of the consumer, as in gardening there is a distinction
between the gardener who plants and tills and the householder who enjoys the finished
product [10] (p. 37).
Dewey’s main thesis is that the aesthetic experience is jointly constructed between painter and viewer,
performer and audience, that both are called to be artists in a shared experience. For me this captures
the essential character of the teacher–student relationship; I as teacher am the gardener, the student is
the householder and we are working together to create beauty, and that means that we both have our
hands in the earth. Seymour Papert warns that this cannot happen unless the activity brought into the
classroom has meaning for the student:
The important difference between the work of a child in an elementary mathematics class
and that of a mathematician is not in the subject matter (old fashioned numbers versus
groups or categories or whatever) but in the fact that the mathematician is creatively engaged
in the pursuit of a personally meaningful project. In this respect a child’s work in an art class
is often close to that of a grown-up artist. [11] (p. 249).
In my own work I have little experience with art class, but I do have some experience with drama,
and there I find a parallel between the response of the student and the teacher to the work being
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 6 of 10

studied and constructed. I do not think it is unreasonable to strive for comparable harmony in the
mathematics class.
In mathematics, aesthetic considerations are regarded as significant in the quest for truth and they
infuse every aspect of a mathematician’s life [8]. Nathalie Sinclair’s marvellous book Mathematics and
Beauty [12] discusses the different ways in which aesthetic considerations impact the mathematician’s
work, the motivational—what structures are worth investigating; the generative—how we come to
understand the workings of the structure; and the evaluative—choosing the best among different
possible approaches or analyses [12] (part III). Of these, the generative role has perhaps been the most
fascinating to me: how beauty and wholeness can be a reliable guide in our search for the correct path.
Poincare [13] famously wrote that this link between beauty and truth worked through the unconscious
and was fundamental to the discovery process. Papert [14] took up this theme in a wonderful essay in
his quest to use technology to show the process at work in the activity of children. His ideal classroom
is built around what he earlier described as projects:

This project-oriented approach contrasts with the problem approach of most mathematics
teaching: a bad feature of the typical problem is that the child does not stay with it long
enough to benefit much from success or from failure. Along with time-scale goes structure.
A project is long enough to have recognizable phases—such as planning, choosing a strategy
of attempting a very simple case first, finding the simple solution, debugging it and so on. And
if the time scale is long enough, and the structures are clear enough, the child can develop a
vocabulary for articulate discussion of the process of working towards his goals [11] (p. 251).

This certainly fits my own recent work, and I find myself paying considerable attention to the question
of what structures are the right ones to bring into a class of students at various grade levels. Barabe
and Proulx call Papert’s project-oriented approach a complete rebuild, “une reconstruction complète” of
school mathematics [15] (p. 26), defining the mathematics curriculum itself not in terms of content but
as the activity or experience of the students.

5. A Complete Rebuild
What mathematicians do is seek to understand the structure of complex systems. As I have
said, what sets them apart from other scientists and humanists and artists is that they work on an
abstract level.
My proposal here is that the mathematics curriculum should be built around structurally rich
activities, of which the tire-pressure investigation is an example. Of course, technical procedures such
as completing a square or simplifying log 3ye2x will be practised, but they should arise organically as

part of a greater investigation. I will give three reasons for this proposal. First, that is what mathematics
is, and if we are going to do something else in high school we should be honest and give the course
another name. Secondly, mathematical activities have beauty and integrity and such experiences are
fundamental to human nature. Thirdly, if we ask what capacities our students will need in their future
lives, the answer is that these are not the completion of a square and the simplification of log 3ye2x ,

but are rather the investigation of complex structures.

The current mathematics curriculum does not have this character. Indeed, it might best be
described as a collection of fragments; Figure 1 is an example of such a fragment. These fragments are
of course hopeful components of beautiful sophisticated structures, but those structures hardly ever
appear in the classroom. Those few students who choose to take the time to play with the fragments
and talk about them and build castles with them can have the wonderful experience, often over
subsequent years, of seeing those structures emerge, but for most students the fragments remain a
mysterious rite of passage (but passage to what?).
If fragments occupy one end of the experience spectrum, wholeness lies at the other, and
Whitehead’s Life and Rhythm, Dewey’s aesthetic and Papert’s projects are about the wholeness
of the student experience. Another aspect of wholeness, quite relevant to my emphasis on the creative
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 7 of 10

arts, is found in an observation by Geoffrey Vickers that the loss of an organic connection between
science and art is recent and unnatural. He bemoans

the sad history of Western culture which, over the last two centuries, has so narrowed
the concepts of both Science and Art as to leave them diminished and incommensurable
rivals,—the one an island in the sea of knowledge not certified as science; the other an island
in the sea of skill not certified as art . . . Moreover the two words “Ars” and “Scientiae” not
only embraced virtually all skill and knowledge, but also overlapped each other’s territory
without offense [16] (p. 143).

This passage came my way at an important moment in my life, and supported my desire to move
forward into the aesthetic. The cultural forces that Vickers is talking about are precisely those that
have bent our school curricula to the grim task of preparing the students for a STEM future in a
technologically-driven society. The irony is that employers who are hiring in the STEM disciplines are
now more interested in the so-called complementary traits, the five C’s: creativity, critical thinking,
collaboration, cooperation and care [1].
The prospect of a complete rebuild poses three operational questions. Are teachers ready for it?
Are students ready for it? Are the architects of the curriculum ready for it?
The teachers. A high school Math Head I have been working with asked recently: “Where are we
going to find the teachers for this? The teacher candidates I work with do not understand how to play
with mathematics.” I feel that there is some change here. In my own interaction with math faculty
at the Faculties of Education, I find that they understand what needs to be done and are working
as hard as they can in their courses to accomplish this. In my experience, where things have gone
wrong for their students is more often in the BA and BSc classrooms, which “cover” material at a rate
that is manageable by perhaps the top 30% of the class but reduce the remaining 70% to the anxious
experience of memorizing context, leaving little time for play. Often our future high school teachers
are recruited from that 70%.
The students. There is a wide range of evidence ([2,11,17] that students of all ages are aesthetic
beings and are capable of more creative endeavours than we credit them with. Even so, there will
always be great heterogeneity in the level of activity students can handle. For this reason, considerable
attention is being paid to the construction of tasks providing a low mathematical floor (requiring
minimal prerequisite knowledge), and a high mathematical ceiling (offering opportunities to explore
more complex concepts and relationships and more varied representations) [8] (p. 236). Boaler
discusses such activities:

Low floor, high ceiling tasks allow all students to access ideas and take them to very
high levels. Fortunately, low floor, high ceiling tasks are also the most engaging and
interesting math tasks with value beyond the fact that they work for students of different
prior achievement levels . . . Such teaching, though demanding, is also extremely fulfilling
for teachers, especially when they see students who lack confidence and were previously
low-achieving take off and soar [3] (p. 115).

Some students will be ready and eager to roll the task right up onto the stage of Precision; others who
might not yet have the right analytical tools can still play and wonder on the stage of Romance. Indeed
“wonder” is a magical word and Sinclair and Watson [18] have a marvellous book review in which
they play with its two shades of meaning. In terms of the student’s future, it is worth observing that
few of them will ever need to complete a square or simplify log 3ye2x . However, they will often need

to arrive at an understanding of the workings of a complex structure, perhaps every time they change
jobs. If we can keep that firmly in mind in our assessment of the value of an activity, that might help to
expand our viewpoint.
The curriculum. Papert comments that “it is possible for children to do creative mathematics
(that is to say: to do mathematics) at all stages of their scholastic lives . . . but a great deal of creative
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 8 of 10

mathematical work by adult mathematicians is necessary to make it possible” [11] (p. 250). That
creative work is the construction of a collection of activities that engage the students in the process
of doing mathematics, that is, in grappling with the structure of a complex system with interacting
parts. A curriculum based on the investigation of such structures is a different kind of curriculum than
the one we currently have; it has different methods and different objectives—indeed, it has a whole
different structure. Moving to such a curriculum is a huge step and I do not see it happening at the
secondary level until a good body of activities has been fashioned and played with in the classroom.
Where are we to look to find these activities?—-to mathematics, of course, and the structures that
mathematicians work with. Many of these will be found in the tertiary classroom and can be adapted
to work at the secondary level.
An example from my linear algebra course is our study of the Hamming error-correction code.
The heart of that two-week unit is the isomorphism between the code and the wonderful “hat game,”
first brought to my attention by the remarkable Richard Hoshino. The winning strategy for that game
is available to anyone who understands the coding algorithm. For example, consider the 15-hat game.
I call for 15 volunteers from the class to sit around a table and I put hats on each of them, red or blue,
determined in each case by the flip of a coin. They all can see the colour of the other 14 hats but not
their own. Each player is given a piece of paper on which they are to write RED, BLUE or PASS.
The team as a whole wins if at least one person writes the colour of her hat, and no one writes the
wrong colour. PASS does not count either way. The team can of course get together beforehand and
decide on a strategy. The amazing result is that the strategy derived from the coding algorithm will
win with probability 15/16. One reason this result is so surprising is that it is clearly the case that every
time a colour is written on the paper it must be wrong 50% of the time. (An accessible example is the
three-hat game—-students can find a strategy that wins 3/4 of the time.)
The point is that while the interaction between the hat game and error-correcting codes can
be analysed by working with the structures of linear algebra, it can also be understood in a more
elementary way, in this case using binary arithmetic—perfect for the senior secondary level. Even
within that framework, the structure is sophisticated and requires considerable play. However, when
you “get it,” it snaps into place and you have this wonderful feeling—I understand!

6. Summing Up
I want school mathematics to give students a whole mathematical experience. Not only is such a
curriculum “true to the nature of the discipline” [3] (pp. 22–23), it also responds to the needs of the
student both now and in the future. In their student lives, they need beauty and wholeness as much as
anything else, and in their future lives they need the experience of coming to grips with sophisticated
structures of different kinds.
However, such a curriculum really is different in kind and its challenges are substantial. We need
writers with an artistic core who have mathematical and pedagogical skills; we need teachers who
are prepared to reimagine what it means to be a classroom mathematics teacher and are willing to
spend time workshopping promising activities; and we need students who are “game” to embark on
mathematical play.
Such changes at the secondary level would have profound implications before and after. At the
elementary level there is a rapidly developing body of work providing and supporting creative tasks
that can engage children in play and develop their mathematical thinking. In some ways, things
are more relaxed at this level as students are farther away from the urgency to prepare for tertiary
mathematics. The main challenge here appears to be the knowledge and experience of many of the
teachers, and there are calls for better training and resources, for example to help teachers understand
the importance of structured play [19]. At the tertiary level, significant changes are needed as well [2].
Instructors will need to understand that their students have some real experience with mathematical
play but will need more time in which to do it.
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8, 56 9 of 10

What, then, of the myth? Other than in the classrooms of exceptional teachers (and I am fortunate
to have worked with a number of these), the mathematics we find in today’s schools is narrow and
technical, an entirely legitimate offspring of the curriculum documents and standard textbooks. This is
far from the character of the discipline itself and bears little resemblance to the activity of mathematics.
Mathematics is different from other disciplines in the precision of its language and the consequent
possibility of a complete understanding of its ideas. Yet that in no way requires a fragmented learning
experience at the school level; indeed, young students are naturally holistic as learners and need
Romantic experiences to propel them onto the stage of Precision. It is particularly important that
school nurture them along this path.
Last week I brought a recently developed unit [20] into a 2-h grade 11/12 class. The objective was
to understand why we have 12 notes in an octave; indeed, what remarkable property of the number 12
is at play here (why not 10 or 15?)? We ranged over a broad array of activities, involving frequencies,
harmonies, and the nature of perception—for example, how good are we at distinguishing notes
of slightly different frequencies? The answer is that we are amazingly good. Indeed, using a tone
generator the students discovered that the brain has the power to distinguish between an eardrum
vibrating at 2000 oscillations per second and one with a vibration of 2010. The more you think about
that, the more extraordinary that seems to be. That is experience. That is Life! Our students are hungry
for it.

Acknowledgments: I am grateful to the editor and three reviewers for their comments, which considerably
sharpened the focus of the paper. Valuable commentary was provided by many colleagues, in particular,
George Gadanidis, Miroslav Lovric, Ami Mamolo, Nathalie Sinclair and Walter Whiteley. I acknowledge
the essential and ongoing collaboration of many secondary school teachers in the development of this work,
particularly David Stocks, Nick Nielsen, Ann Arden, Shawn Godin, Jim Pai, Henry Tam, Beverly Farahani and
Catarina Raposo. Also, thanks go to my graduate students, past and present, who have had so much real “Life”
to offer the project, Nathalie Sinclair (from way back!), Divya Lala, Kariane Ouellet, Stefanie Knebel and Mike
Cabral. I am grateful to Suzanne Findleton, Siobhain Broekhoven and Jennifer Holm for valuable technical
assistance. Partial funding for this work has come from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC) and the Math Knowledge Network (MKN) of the Knowledge Network of Applied Education
Research (KNAER).
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflicts of interest.

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