October 8 - Entrance Slip - Henderson and Taimina

I wholeheartedly agree with the authors that in mathematics "the goal is to understand meanings." Since computers are getting better and better at computing, which is the repetitive action of carrying a structured task, then what's left for us humans is the actual creativity, as well as the exploration of ideas on the subject. For example, understanding why we integrate is more important than solving an actual integral. We can still focus on the technique, and/or how the computer does it, but getting as good as a computer (since computers can do it better) should be beside the point of teaching mathematics.

Another aspect that struck me was the "proof without words" idea. I believe mathematics sometimes becomes too standardized, meaning that we focus too much on the right way to write a proof. While that is good for writing mathematical papers, forcing a rigid way for writing proofs misses the point of what proofs are, which in this case, as the authors say, it's about the idea and convincing the reader that your reasoning is not flawed. Following someone's reasoning and abstracting the reasoning part from their writing is a skill in and of itself, and standardizing proof writing takes away this skill, and hence with it, the underlying creativity.