How to Improve the Math Education System

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I often feel like the math education system at the moment is almost like trying to get you to play a musical instrument, but all it lets you do are scales and arpeggios. So what I was very lucky to have was a teacher who would tell us stories about prime numbers or infinities. Why don't we actually have a kind of like another stream which is telling these big stories, kind of Shakespeare and the Mozart of mathematics? And I suppose in a way that's what I've tried to do with my books. The first book that I wrote, Music of the Prize, the story of prime numbers and the extraordinary journey we've gone on,. Still working on to

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How can we have System-2-type reflection but with System-1-type speed? How can math be considered to be a "fast" way of solving problems? Is math discovered or invented? How can we use math to think better in everyday life? How can math education be improved? Do mathematicians have a snobbish preference for "pure" maths over applied maths? How can math be used to tell stories?

Marcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is author of seven books including his most recent book, Thinking Better: the Art of the Shortcut. He has also published a play, I is a Strange Loop, which was performed at the Barbican in London in which he was also lead actor. He has presented numerous radio and TV series including a four-part landmark TV series for the BBC called The Story of Maths. He works extensively with a range of arts organisations bringing science alive for the public from The Royal Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year's Honours List and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. Follow him on Twitter at @MarcusduSautoy or find out more about him at www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk.

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