What, you may wonder, did Franz Kafka have to say about K–12 math education?

Probably nothing, you might say to yourself.

But you would be wrong. At least according to Ben Orlin.

As you know, Kafka’s second-most-famous novel, The Trial, had nothing obvious to do with math education. Or so it appears. But Orlin offers a different point of view, as sometimes happens.

Check out his Math with Bad Drawings from two days ago. It’s short, so read the whole thing, especially the quotations within the cartoons, which are fully cited from The Trial. I’m not in any sense saying that I agree with the comments about math education (nor is Orlin saying that he agrees with them either), but there is a huge amount of truth there and a lot to think about. So…think about it!

Categories: Teaching & Learning