{"id":3960,"date":"2024-05-04T09:22:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T13:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/?p=3960"},"modified":"2025-07-28T19:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T23:16:09","slug":"learning-mathematics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2024\/05\/04\/learning-mathematics\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Mathematics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-3958\" src=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Learning-Mathematics-Fig2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Learning-Mathematics-Fig2.jpg 497w, https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Learning-Mathematics-Fig2-300x228.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Needless to say it was an abysmal failure.<\/p>\n<p>That got me to thinking <em>deeply<\/em> about what it meant to learn mathematics and in particular symbolic algebra.<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Learning-Mathematics-240420.pdf\">Learning Mathematics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.\u00a0 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[186,258,103],"class_list":["post-3960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-math-commentary","tag-keith-devlin","tag-math-education","tag-soapbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3961,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3960\/revisions\/3961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}