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i’d be a math teacher. hopefully in the commune i’d be able to avoid the rigidity and tedium of the regular math curriculum, instead being able to focus on the fun stuff and foster people’s curiosity.
Interesting! Everyone loves professors who can make usually dry subjects fun, what are some fun math stuff?
at the higher levels you start to see all kinds of crazy stuff, here are some examples:
- mathematicians abstracted the idea of measure and then found out not everything can be measured
- we know there are different sizes of infinity, and we know what the "smallest" infinity is, but it's impossible to "know" (ie prove in ZFC) what the "second smallest size of" infinity is
- we took the regular number line and made it longer just to see what would happen
- The Hairy Ball Theorem, which says "you can't comb a hairy ball flat without creating a cowlick" (quote from source)
but as with any discipline, a big part of how much fun it is to learn has to do with how it's taught. i think it's possible to teach middle school/high school geometry in a way that makes it fun and engaging, but it's often not taught in this way. there's a great article/paper that talks about this. it's written to be very readable and accessible, although it is a bit long (but you can get the basic idea in the first 5-7 pages). he talks about how terribly math is taught in school and how it's no wonder so many people hate it as a result.
he also talks about how learning math could be much more fun if it was taught differently. he gives a really great example of this when he discusses something as simple as the formula for the area of a triangle (on the bottom of page 3 to the end of page 4). i tried to summarize it for this post, but i don't think a summary would do it justice, so i strongly encourage you to read it if you're interested.
but as with any discipline, a big part of how much fun it is to learn has to do with how it's taught.
I teach (technically still in college, but true enough) basically the opposite of you, history, and this is very true. You can make history lessons fun and engaging and challenging, but it's also very easy to make them boring. Unfortunately, as you are also aware of, it's difficult to make these interesting lessons with the constraints of time (of which administrative bullshit takes up a lot), class sizes and government-mandated curriculums and tests.
Last year I had my internship at a pretty shitty school with abysmal guidance and support which meant I was teaching all on my own even though I shouldn't have been allowed to, and basically no curriculum. That sucked, but it also meant I had basically total freedom in what and how I taught, and the classes were 12 students maximum. I pretty much only did engaging and fun lessons for 4 months straight.
Ugh, when will we ever need non measurable sets in the lead mines?
they're a great way to confuse your comrades during lunch breaks
HOW IS MATHS DRY?!
It always pains me how prevalent education systems hinder curiosity and our natural love to learn.