Kim Regnier Jongerius

Students who ask questions about why math is the way it is, rather than seeing math as a collection of known facts to be memorized, are told implicitly or explicitly that they are not “math people.” Many of them internalize this message, stop asking questions, and learn as little math as possible, avoiding careers that require the use of mathematics and sometimes passing erroneous (and harmful) messages about mathematics on to their children. In Is Math Real? How Simple Questions…