> > There's so much to learning where the sharp bits of math are; proofs are the razor-thin path through the briar patch.
As a student representative for my undergraduate mathematics course, I got really pissed off at lecturers for exactly this reason: they'd write out a perfect correct proof on the whiteboard, but wouldn't explain where it had come from or how people had arrived at the solution. We were left to figure that out on our own.
They then complained that students were rote-learning for exams, rather than coming to a full understanding of the material. I'm not sure what they were expecting, given that that's exactly how they were teaching it.
As a student representative for my undergraduate mathematics course, I got really pissed off at lecturers for exactly this reason: they'd write out a perfect correct proof on the whiteboard, but wouldn't explain where it had come from or how people had arrived at the solution. We were left to figure that out on our own.
They then complained that students were rote-learning for exams, rather than coming to a full understanding of the material. I'm not sure what they were expecting, given that that's exactly how they were teaching it.