Tucholsky as a writer is generally great to read. Definitely one of the greatest german satirist, and a great source for interesting and witty albeit a little biased insights into the Germany of the Weimar Republic.
How would you disagree with it?
In regards to its view on math or on math education?
I have thought a bit about this and I see quite a few problems with his approach to the latter:
a) the number of students
b) the frequent lack of motivation of the pupils (which probably will never completely go away)
c) the lacking education/motivation of the teachers
So I dont really think that for large-scale education his ideas can be implemented, but that they are great for teaching your kids/friends about something.
But I do not see how you could not agree with him that the current situation is disastrous, since everything he said hit home for me when I was a student.
So I would really appreciate if you could point out where he is wrong, since a big part of my views about education/math are based on this.
Measurement/A mathematicians lament by Paul Lockhart.
The first is not by any means very advanced/interesting mathematics per se,
but it is written by somebody with an incredible passion for mathematics, which you
can feel throughout the whole book, and which was totally novel for me coming from
schoolish mathematics drudgery. Also, the way he approaches mathematics and teaching is quite interesting.
Nothing for somebody who is already into mathematics, but as an entry point it is absolutely great.
The second is a critique of school math, freely available online (https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/Lockharts...), that absolutely hits home on a lot of problems of math and school in general, but in a way that basically says
"Look, its so cool, why are we ruining it? Lets do this better." which is much better than another bitter, destructive critique. And its well written and only twenty pages. Definitely recommend.
