First reading (Sep 9)----Why teach Math history?

 

I firmly believe that Math teachers should mention some interesting historical Math stories when teaching a certain theory or concept. For example, when teaching the Gauss formula many Math teachers would tell a story of Carl Gauss about how he amazed his teacher with finding the sum of the integers from 1 to 100 when he was a young boy. Through telling stories, students will know the names of mathematicians, uncover how and why these concepts have been invented, and most importantly feel happy and relax. Students love stories. Teachers could tell the story of zero when explaining why zero cannot be the denominator, the story of the Pythagorean Theorem, the story of numbers when teaching place value, and so forth. Telling Historical Math stories is the only approach I knew about integrating history of mathematics in the classroom. Since the history is normally imparted chronologically, how to connect these pieces together to show students a whole picture of the history of Mathematics makes me feel I am not teaching history.

After reading the article of "Integrating history of Mathematics in the classroom: an analytic survey", I realized that "integrating the history of mathematics into the educational process" is so significant. The authors of the book elaborated Why from five aspects. Among them, "The appreciation of mathematics as a cultural endeavor" is the one that I strongly agree. Without Math,  technology, medical treatment, transportation and many other things wouldn't be possible. To show our sincere appreciation to Math, we need to know its history more or less.

Another part of the article inspired me is the Historical Problems. Problems with no solution or problems unsolved could show students what is the tenacious and perseverance. These are the spirits of Mathematics we want to pass on from generation to generation. Be courageous, do not fear the problem that looks hard. It is hard, and the only thing we need is taking a little bit more time on it.