Blog Response 6

After reading the article, I can say that teachers should be acknowledging non-European sources of mathematics. I say this because of two points: Europe is not the only continent in the world, and there are often many ways to solve a problem, as demonstrated by the Pythagorean Theorem and the Gougu theorem. The motivations for solving mathematical problems were different in each area. For the Greeks, they used math to pursue philosophical truths of the world, and in doing so, put a much greater emphasis on proofs. The Chinese used math more in the application sense such as land surveying, but also acknowledged the existence of purely mathematical problems. As teachers, we should help the students understand why studying math is important to them, since all students are different in their own educational pursuits.


My thoughts on naming mathematical concepts is that the concepts should be named after someone who contributed most to its discovery. I also think that we should not dwell on the past, which means that we shouldn’t rename a theorem just because they didn’t discover it. Renaming a widely known concept such as the Pythagorean Theorem would be a very lengthy and costly process, where everyone would need to be informed and all the textbooks and papers would have to be updated.

Comments

  1. Amanda FritzlanNovember 9, 2022 at 1:56 PM

    Good post! I appreciate your opinions. You also raise an important point that the motivation for mathematical activities were different at different times in different places throughout history. This would be a valuable lesson to share with secondary students.

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