Math is a Creative Art

Like many companies, mine is shaped by a series of stories and experiences that influence the kind of long-term impact I hope to have on the students and families Mathlogica serves. One of those stories comes from an email exchange I had with the mathematics department chair during my college years. I asked a simple question about whether math could be thought of as a creative art. He gave a very simple response saying that yes, of course it could be thought of that way. Not only that but thinking of it that way is fundamental to an appreciation and acceptance of what it is and why we learn it to begin with. The conversation unfolded into topics about pure math, infinity and other subjects of interest - but to have had some sort of confirmation from a qualified individual about the artistic basis of math made me feel as though I’d been lied to for the whole of my academic career. If math is a creative art, then why didn’t we learn it that way, and why did I have to wait until then to even begin to unfold the wonder of it all?

A plausible response to this question could be that all creative endeavors guarantee that you’re going to make a mess somewhere along the way, and making a mess can be fun until it’s not. The creative process isn’t linear and that same aspect is reflected in the learning of abstract topics. At some point after you develop a sense for the building blocks, it’s then your job to start building something with them. But the structure you create might fall over, or maybe it’s beautiful but not functional. Maybe after you finish the design it’ll cost more to build than it’s worth.  This inherent “messiness” is hard to standardize, let alone measure understanding and progress on. Messy things take time to develop; they can be frustrating to manage and completely wreak havoc on any kind of “timeline”. Taking that into consideration, it would make sense for traditional learning environments to tend toward a standardized approach to math learning out of a need to serve a diverse population. Unfortunately, doing that doesn’t capture the full scope of the subject and leaves out an entire piece of the puzzle in terms of learning how to problem solve. Not only that, but this approach doesn’t set up the next generation to consider multiple perspectives in our developing world of technological innovation.

As we welcome the fourth industrial revolution that mainstream developments of artificial intelligence introduce, it has become more relevant for students to be able to think from multiple perspectives. If a top-down model starts with the standards and has the student conform, then a bottom-up approach would start with the student and raise them up to achieve the standard by capitalizing on their strengths. The latter method compliments this idea that the way we think, learn and interact with the natural world isn’t standardized either. Instead it takes multiple perspectives to eventually arrive at one universal truth. Therefore it follows that any other mathematical art, like physics or music for example, should be introduced with open-ended wonder so that it can then mature into something more definitive over time. Mathlogica is a place where that can happen whether it’s within a small group class with peers or through individual tutoring with a specific plan. At its core our mission is to start with a bottom-up approach to show how math learning mirrors individual strengths in the same way that it’s mirrored in other subjects.

This only scratches the surface of the conversation on this topic, but for now we can conclude that math is absolutely a creative art and well-supported non-traditional learners can be a leading force for the Even more important than having the right answer, students must be given the opportunity to tap into their own creativity and intuition about the subject. Doing this allows them make a “mess” through productive struggle and develop the critical thinking skills that helps them arrive at an answer that they can defend objectively, believe intrinsically and use for their future success.