See I’m the opposite, I can memorise very well. But memorisation and recall is itself a skill, one that isn’t taught basically at all anymore, but which I managed to teach myself through interest in the subject.

But nobody is interested in a formula for the sake of a formula. They could be interested in it’s application or it’s history or weird quirks, but learning a formula itself is basically like learning how to say something in a foreign language but you don’t know what it means - you can remember it to pass a test, but won’t remember it 5 years later.

With maths there is tons of interesting stuff, a good teacher could easily make fifteenth century nautical tables interesting to a class of teenage boys even if it is pointless, but as Lockhart laments - their job is to teach the syllabus so those boys are ready for whatever bullshit they will be forced to learn in next year’s curriculum and all that does is sap more and more joy out of kids every year until everyone despises maths, which nobody should because maths is actually really fun!

Give this one a read Phil, it might reawaken something in you too.