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Comment by drjesusphd | Hacker News Reader

> It is not possible to teach great research mathematics without being a great research mathematician.

I'm not sure it makes any sense to talk about "teaching research mathematics". If it's research mathematics (as in, discovering new math), it should not and cannot be done in a classroom setting.

With that in mind, it is certainly possible to be a good math teacher while being a poor or mediocre researcher. Their students are probably not be prepared for an academic math career, but they can walk away with a solid understanding of established mathematics nonetheless.

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I mean, if we are talking about teaching elementary school, then you don't need to be world class researcher to get them ready for next level. You need to like math and, imo, you need to like problem solving, you need to understand math instead of having it memorize etc.

However, you definitely don't need to be actual researcher. I would even argue that it will be more beneficial to study psychology, child development, child behavior etc then spending time doing serious math research.

I'm not talking about elementary school, I'm talking about masters or bachelor's level advanced mathematics that has nonetheless been established for decades or centuries.

All I'm saying is that teaching and researching are different skill sets. One does not prepare you for the other except indirectly, nor is one a prerequisite for the other. One could just as easily say some pedagogy is required to communicate original research. It's true to an extent, but you don't need to be a excellent teacher to be an excellent researcher, or vice versa.

Boaler work is all about children, so I interpreted it in that context. I mostly agree with you.

Math teaching until upper years of undergrad is "The Technical History of Mathematics", which really could be taught very well by teachers yoinked by a time machine from the 1800s...

My favorite math teacher was a linguist by training, but had a knack for getting across the intuition behind Linear Algebra. Some of my mathematics researcher acquaintances mentioned that in teaching their own children mathematics, they focus on clarity of thinking and language...

Here's a relevant RPF quote: "Mathematics is a language plus reasoning; it is like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning." ― Richard Feynman

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