Title: Should a Mathematics Teacher Know Something about the History of Mathematics
Abstract: Aren't there more important questions to be asked on teacher education? Questions like: should a mathematics teacher know something about mathematics? Or about the mathematics he is teaching? Or about the use of mathematics, about how it is applied (and by that I do not mean a study of so-called Applied Mathematics)? I just ask because if I did not, other people would wonder and rightly so why roam the remote expanses of history as long as problems near at hand have not been solved, nay, not even been tackled? I apologize, it is just my theme: the history of mathematics what it can mean to the teacher, to instruction, to the student Again, isn't it running away from greater responsibilities to cast ourselves upon the mercy of history? Can we instil into inhuman mathematics more humanity by convincing the learner that mathematics has been conceived by men, or wouldn't it be a shorter way, a stronger proof, to have some mathematics they are really concerned with recreated by the students themselves? The argument closest to handand the most often heard -is that knowledge of the history of a subject area helps in understanding the subject matter itself I doubt it at last as far as mathematics is concerned Mathematics has a long history, the longest of all sciences A history of dead ends, in which mankind will not be lost again, and which are only interesting as curiosities A history of progress where even the present state is not the last judgement. The student, however, learns a mathematics that to him is the non plus ultra No doubt there have been pre-stages, but are they wmth remerr..beting? Whoever learns a second modern language learns it in its present state, doesn't he? Well, perhaps at universities one might nurture the belief that a language cannot be taught by disregarding its historical granamar, French should not be detached from medieval French and vulgar Latin, and so on; and indeed this knowledge could be useful to students who aspire to more profOund linguistic understanding But Sanscrit as a precondition fOr studying modern languages was abolished quite a time ago at European universities, notwithstanding those philologists who taught early in the present century and who now turn in their graves History has more and more been eliminated from the university instruction of sciences Maybe Hippocrates' name will be dropped at least once in cour·ses at medical schools, but no examiner will expect a student to know whether anaesthesia was invented before Christ or later Up to a few decades ago education as well as philosophy were
Publication Year: 1981
Publication Date: 1981-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 41
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot