In one of our periodic FaceTime calls I found out that my granddaughter in 6th grade was interested in learning algebra and had gotten a book to help her out. Clearly this initiative to get a head start prior to the normal course curriculum excited me, so I wrote what I thought was an insightful essay on the meaning and purpose of algebra. Needless to say it was an abysmal failure.
That got me to thinking deeply about what it meant to learn mathematics and in particular symbolic algebra.