Lockhart's Lament

I agree with Lockhart's description of the current state of mathematics education, that it is souless and heavily focused on rote memorization and procedures. Students are taught in math that its just facts and answers on paper and that there is no room for creativity. They have been taught from a young age that there is only one right answer and one right way to get there, which is not true. As a result, students seldom explore the "why" and the relational thinking and focus on the instrumental aspect. As a result, students lack motivation in the subject area. As Lockhart described, mathematics is an art. Proofs in itself is an art of logic flow, as there can be multiple ways to prove one thing. 

On the other hand, Lockhart disagrees with the overemphasis on standardizd testing. Standardized testing is purely instrumental learning for many students. Many students who excell in it do rely on rote memorization without understanding why things are the way they are. They find shortcuts because of the heavy time constraints. Although I can understand his point of view, I still think schools need to have a heavy emphasis on standardized testing. The reason I believe so is that it is already the nature of the system and cannot be broken or changed. In order to get into university or college, post-secondary institutions need a way to gauge students' ability in various subject areas. They need a way to see which students are proficient in particular subject areas. Since every school is different, it is insufficient to look for letter grades on report cards. That is why standardized testing is used. And because it is used, schools need to do their best to prepare students for it.