Math Is a Verb
When the world’s most disliked school subject is not a spectator but a player sport; when you need to do math rather than just read about it—the very reason why pop or general math books seldom help raise the mathematical or quantitative literacy of their armchair readers.
Recreationally speaking, math is a noun, but painfully or cognitively speaking, math is a verb—reading and understanding a math proof is one thing; guessing and checking and failing repeatedly and finally proving or solving a math problem is the actual thing.
Math as a Verb
When math learning goes beyond learning facts, figures, and applications; instead, math is humanized so that it is allowed to convey beauty, values, truth, justice, play, and love—when mathematical thinking is viewed as a way of life.
Teachers should present math as a verb, not as a noun—when students should be encouraged to be active players, not mere spectators.