Computers Allow Teaching Mathematics as Art or Music
Subject
Mathematics Should be Taught Like Art
Imagine you had to take an art class in which you were taught how to paint a fence or a wall, but you were never shown the paintings of the great masters, and you weren't even told that such paintings existed. Pretty soon you'd be asking, why study art? That's absurd, of course, but it's surprisingly close to the way we teach children mathematics. In elementary and middle school and even into high school, we hide…
Conclusion
Object
Pianos Make Music Accessible Like Computers Make Math Accessible
Though it has become a naturalized part of music-making since the first one was built in 1710, the pianoforte (its name means "soft-loud") was a technical marvel for its time, a machine that changed music in ways that are hard to imagine. Computer pioneer Alan Kay once observed that any technological advance is "technology only for people who are born before it was invented,' and in the case of the piano, this…
Why they relate
Computers allow children to play with mathematics, learning through low-cost failure and experimentation. Similar to how paints and a canvas allow exploring art, or a piano allows exploring music.