Reviews for Mathematics Education Across Time and Place
"A strikingly original and engaging book about the global, historical and contemporary cultural activity that is the teaching and learning of mathematics. The extensive use throughout of creative non-fiction accounts (focused on such a hyper-rational subject) results in a lively, informative diversity of voices. Highly recommended."
--David Pimm, author of Speaking Mathematically and Symbols and Meaning in School Mathematics
--David Pimm, author of Speaking Mathematically and Symbols and Meaning in School Mathematics
"Mathematics Education Across Time and Place provides a historical, philosophical, educational, political and societal context about mathematics education over the last two millennia. The book is organized in eight chapters starting with the Greeks and Romans followed by a chapter on the Islamic Influence. The next three chapters take us from the Italian Renaissance to the mathematical practitioners of England to the French Revolution. The last three chapters move to early America, Canada and the twentieth century. The book has twenty-one essays in the form of stories, biographies, autobiographies, dialogues, speeches and letters, which gives the reader the experience and knowledge about mathematics education at different times and places around the world. Though the essays are fictional, they are scholarly writings based on historical documents and professional sources. O’Shea skillfully prefaces each essay with a brief commentary that provides a deeper context about the influence of historical developments and educational reforms on how and what mathematics was taught. So the narrative provides a thread that extends across 23 centuries, and winds through some lived experiences of mathematics educators from Athens to Zimbabwe.
As I read about the lives and the issues the mathematics educators faced, I find that a number of the issues are still relevant in today’s context. Learning mathematics in context with manipulatives is still pedagogically sound as it was a few thousand years ago. “We learnt division by dividing piles of apples between us, and he even seemed to see some mathematical purpose to those wonderful games we played with dice and knucklebones, not to mention the more complex game of chess” (page 10). Examples show how mathematics was used to solve problems in daily lives such as the development of accurate maps, the use of arithmetic in commerce, calculation of latitude and longitude with adoption of astronomy.
Most of the autobiographies included in this book come from an Euro-centric worldview. The inclusion of autobiographies from the Islamic world provides a unique opportunity to bring together Greek mathematics with its emphasis on geometry and number theory, and Hindu mathematics with its numeration system and focus on algebra and trigonometry (page 38). O’Shea acknowledges, “not included is any history pertaining to China, Japan, or India, as few students chose those areas, and reliable sources were difficult to find” (page xviii). We need to know about different worldviews, as “all people do mathematics because all cultures count, locate, measure, design, play, and explain” (page 309). Worldview is an expression of the creative process that connects all things. Indigenous peoples have historically applied the thought process of mathematics within cultural contexts, which are holistic. Most Indigenous cultures have an orientation to learning that is metaphorically represented in its art forms, its way of community, its language, and its way of understanding itself in relationship to its natural environment.
Thomas O’Shea has been retired for a number of years but his passion for mathematics education continues. This book is his labour of love; he truly is a maestro dei maestri (teacher of teachers). He achieves the purpose of the book to help mathematics teachers, teacher educators, and interested members of the public appreciate the path that we have followed to the present state of mathematics education. His use of imagination and story telling lets one understand the historical and social context for schools, schooling, and the place of mathematics in schools. The book is a pleasure to read; it enables one to reflect on the critical role of mathematical understanding in our personal and professional lives, in our history, and in our culture. I wholeheartedly recommend it to those interested in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The book is bound to expand the horizons of anyone interested in mathematics as a human endeavor."
--Kanwal Neel, winner of the 1996 Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence and in 2012 was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal.
As I read about the lives and the issues the mathematics educators faced, I find that a number of the issues are still relevant in today’s context. Learning mathematics in context with manipulatives is still pedagogically sound as it was a few thousand years ago. “We learnt division by dividing piles of apples between us, and he even seemed to see some mathematical purpose to those wonderful games we played with dice and knucklebones, not to mention the more complex game of chess” (page 10). Examples show how mathematics was used to solve problems in daily lives such as the development of accurate maps, the use of arithmetic in commerce, calculation of latitude and longitude with adoption of astronomy.
Most of the autobiographies included in this book come from an Euro-centric worldview. The inclusion of autobiographies from the Islamic world provides a unique opportunity to bring together Greek mathematics with its emphasis on geometry and number theory, and Hindu mathematics with its numeration system and focus on algebra and trigonometry (page 38). O’Shea acknowledges, “not included is any history pertaining to China, Japan, or India, as few students chose those areas, and reliable sources were difficult to find” (page xviii). We need to know about different worldviews, as “all people do mathematics because all cultures count, locate, measure, design, play, and explain” (page 309). Worldview is an expression of the creative process that connects all things. Indigenous peoples have historically applied the thought process of mathematics within cultural contexts, which are holistic. Most Indigenous cultures have an orientation to learning that is metaphorically represented in its art forms, its way of community, its language, and its way of understanding itself in relationship to its natural environment.
Thomas O’Shea has been retired for a number of years but his passion for mathematics education continues. This book is his labour of love; he truly is a maestro dei maestri (teacher of teachers). He achieves the purpose of the book to help mathematics teachers, teacher educators, and interested members of the public appreciate the path that we have followed to the present state of mathematics education. His use of imagination and story telling lets one understand the historical and social context for schools, schooling, and the place of mathematics in schools. The book is a pleasure to read; it enables one to reflect on the critical role of mathematical understanding in our personal and professional lives, in our history, and in our culture. I wholeheartedly recommend it to those interested in the teaching and learning of mathematics. The book is bound to expand the horizons of anyone interested in mathematics as a human endeavor."
--Kanwal Neel, winner of the 1996 Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence and in 2012 was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal.