This evening I saw a talk by Scott Kim, puzzle maker extraordinaire. Like Vi Hart, he thinks mathematics in terms of its inherent beauty, the way a composer thinks of music, or a poet thinks of the written word.
Near the end of an extremely entertaining and enlightening talk, he said that in educating our kids, we should think not in terms of dressing it up to try to make it entertaining, but in terms of revealing its beauty. Just as we develop our love of music through a literature of musical works, he encouraged teaching math the way one would teach any other category of art: Through its literature — a literature of mathematics.
It occurred to me that this phrase would be a very useful one to bring into discussions within the University. Most of the University community does not even realize that there is a literature of mathematics. Perhaps it’s time to change that.