“How can teachers help students find the beauty in math?” asks this article. Clearly, many students have yet to discover this aspect of math; one unfortunately hears much more about math anxiety than math appreciation. Some of this anxiety could stem from the presentation of math as a series of abstract symbols and equations.

The experts in the article linked to above argue that this murky presentation is a largely responsible for students’ apprehension about math. They stress the importance of creating math images, computer-generated or in the real world, that depict what students are learning. This would create some much-needed context for a subject that can easily become overly abstract and overly frustrating.