THE INSTITUTE OF DEMOCRACY FROM MATHEMATICS

ACADEMIC ARTICLES AND NOTICES

• The Proceedings of the first Socrates Comenius project for the European Commission for Education, directed by the Landesinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht Stuttgart, LEU in 1996-98. Edited by Dr Hartmut Köhler, Eduardo Carpintero, Colin Hannaford, and published in 1999. 125 pages. Separate translations in English (M42e), German (M42), and Spanish (M42c). University libraries only should apply to Dr Köhler, LEU, Rotebühlstrasse 131, 70197 Stuttgart. Tel.: 0049/711/1849566.

• Mathematics Teaching is Democratic Education
Abstract published in 1998 in ZDM, the Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, Europe’s primary English language journal of international reviews on Mathematical Education This 7 page abstract is a full account of the fundamental thesis from the proceedings of the EU Socrates Comenius project described above. Also gives a very full explanation of the historical parallels between the development of mathematics and democratic practices. I have a few original copies left, or may perhaps be ordered from the Fachinformationzentrum Karlsruhe as ISSN 0044-4103, by email from: library@fiz-karlsruhe.de

• Class Talk, from the British science journal New Scientist, 28 August 1999.
Publication in even in a broad-based popular science journal means facing the sternest test of writing within the tight limits of content and of length. In Germany, as later in France, I had far less difficulty in persuading intellectuals that when any system of mathematics education is applied to everyone, it must have consequences which are political. In Germany I had already pointed out that the insistence on absolute ruthlessness in applying mathematical rigor to problems in 19th and early 20th century was paralleled by the rise of popular leaders in Europe and Russia demanding the same unpitying ruthlessness in their followers’ application of their political ideas. The scientist and moral philosopher Dr Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, elder brother of then German President and one of the most eminent men of science of his generation wrote to me personally: “It is an important contribution to understanding the connection between intellectual, moral and political problems of our world.” I broke new ground in Britain by making the same point here. Available here

See also: http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/mathdigest/199911-class.html

• Say it with Socrates, from the Times Education Supplement, October 1, 1999.
The second article published in this year and the first in a British educational journal, this began with the same realisation that I was teaching even the cleverest of my pupils to do maths like little automatons - with virtually no understanding at all. In it I quoted from the address of the German poet Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, to the 50th Mathematical Congress in 1998: “It’s as though one were to acquaint people with music by having them practise only scales year and year out. The result would be a lifelong hatred of this art.” Or science. In 1999 I had visited Hungary to hear Professor Eva Vásárhelyi of the Department of Mathematics Didactics of the famous Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest explain the remarkable results achieved by her researchers after they encouraged teachers and pupils to engage in mathematics classes in friendly dialogue instead of the teachers working like circus trainers to get their pupils to do mindless tricks. We had both rediscovered what Socrates tried to teach: talking exercises parts of the brain that only listening can never reach. The editors insisted on giving it this title. Prophets are still rarely celebrated at home.

• Les Mathématiques, ou la Démocratie.
The original thesis as translated and published in France by the Association des Professeurs de Mathématiques de L’Enseignement Public, the association of French mathematics teaching professionals in school and university.

• Killing Democracy, Panorama, June 2001.
Panorama, is the official journal of the twelve European Schools governed by the European Union’s Commission for Education. This was an angry polemic against the failure of the European Union to recognise and react to the increasingly undemocratic nature of the European Union and its vast bureaucracy. In February this year Pierre Berthelet, a French jurist, had submitted to the European Parliament an official report warning that the European Union was developing an “excessively repressive federal system” and that its enforcement arm could easily become “a monster.”

• Programmed to Fail, or Taught to Succeed? Panorama, May 2002
Published in the official EU European Schools journal Panorama in May 2002, this is an explanation for teachers and parents of why it is that teaching children to learn from teachers simply makes them dependent on the ability of their teachers to communicate ideas. Whilst this is nearly always successful at first, as children grow older and the concepts they have to understand become more important, more and more children find that they are failing - and that they do not know why. This is when we tend to explain that they 'lack aptitude'. This attitude is particularly ruinous in maths and other sciences. The truth is that letting them become dependent on their teachers' abilities rather than improving their own means that they are literally programmed to fail. Available here.

• Address to Visiting Transylvanian Mathematics Teaching Students at Budapest University, Panorama, May 2002.
A dreadful warning of the fatal dangers of the mathematics classroom. This was not hyperbole. One of my immediate successors in my first school post had tragically killed himself. Available here.

• Added Value, Times Education Supplement, January 2003.

• Read Aloud - And Learn! From the journal Literacy Today of the National Literacy Trust, June 2003
A very useful article by the editorial and journalist team of the National Literacy Trust. Its fascinating statistics on the near uselessness of trying to convey information to children by talking at them compared with the nearly perfect recall achieved when children discuss ideas themselves should convince any of your colleagues and friends that numeracy cannot be improved separately from literacy.

Available here: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Pubs/literacytoday.html

• “What is it that you do to our children in your school?”
As yet unpublished (and I think quite funny) article originally written for the official teachers magazine of the British Department of Education. Rejected without an explanation presumably because civil servants whose jobs depends on making an endless fuss about hiring adequate teachers do not want to be told that that is not the reason why so many children fail. Children fail because they are not taught to learn.

• An unpublished lecture (also waiting for an invitation to be delivered) building on the original thesis, and the experience gained since then, but also discussing the huge problem of further social exclusion and stratification caused by bad teaching not only reinforcing weaker pupils’ lack of confidence but also the thoughtlessness and selfishness of able pupils and the effect on our societies. Also draws on the thinking and writing of my friend Professor Didier Nordon on the University of Bordeaux, in particular his book, Les Mathématiques Pures N’Existent Pas!” (A title which, in its own Gallic fashion, virtually explains itself).

FUTURE EVENTS

THESE ARE UPDATED ON A MONTHLY BASIS.


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		ACADEMIC ARTICLES AND NOTICES • The Proceedings of the first Socrates Comenius project for the European Commission for Education, directed by the Landesinstitut für Erziehung und Unterricht Stuttgart, LEU in 1996-98. Edited by Dr Hartmut Köhler, Eduardo Carpintero, Colin Hannaford, and published in 1999. 125 pages. Separate translations in English (M42e), German (M42), and Spanish (M42c). University libraries only should apply to Dr Köhler, LEU, Rotebühlstrasse 131, 70197 Stuttgart. Tel.: 0049/711/1849566. • Mathematics Teaching is Democratic Education Abstract published in 1998 in ZDM, the Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, Europe’s primary English language journal of international reviews on Mathematical Education This 7 page abstract is a full account of the fundamental thesis from the proceedings of the EU Socrates Comenius project described above. Also gives a very full explanation of the historical parallels between the development of mathematics and democratic practices. I have a few original copies left, or may perhaps be ordered from the Fachinformationzentrum Karlsruhe as ISSN 0044-4103, by email from: library@fiz-karlsruhe.de • Class Talk, from the British science journal New Scientist, 28 August 1999. Publication in even in a broad-based popular science journal means facing the sternest test of writing within the tight limits of content and of length. In Germany, as later in France, I had far less difficulty in persuading intellectuals that when any system of mathematics education is applied to everyone, it must have consequences which are political. In Germany I had already pointed out that the insistence on absolute ruthlessness in applying mathematical rigor to problems in 19th and early 20th century was paralleled by the rise of popular leaders in Europe and Russia demanding the same unpitying ruthlessness in their followers’ application of their political ideas. The scientist and moral philosopher Dr Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, elder brother of then German President and one of the most eminent men of science of his generation wrote to me personally: “It is an important contribution to understanding the connection between intellectual, moral and political problems of our world.” I broke new ground in Britain by making the same point here. Available here See also: http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/mathdigest/199911-class.html • Say it with Socrates, from the Times Education Supplement, October 1, 1999. The second article published in this year and the first in a British educational journal, this began with the same realisation that I was teaching even the cleverest of my pupils to do maths like little automatons - with virtually no understanding at all. In it I quoted from the address of the German poet Hans-Magnus Enzensberger, to the 50th Mathematical Congress in 1998: “It’s as though one were to acquaint people with music by having them practise only scales year and year out. The result would be a lifelong hatred of this art.” Or science. In 1999 I had visited Hungary to hear Professor Eva Vásárhelyi of the Department of Mathematics Didactics of the famous Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest explain the remarkable results achieved by her researchers after they encouraged teachers and pupils to engage in mathematics classes in friendly dialogue instead of the teachers working like circus trainers to get their pupils to do mindless tricks. We had both rediscovered what Socrates tried to teach: talking exercises parts of the brain that only listening can never reach. The editors insisted on giving it this title. Prophets are still rarely celebrated at home. • Les Mathématiques, ou la Démocratie. The original thesis as translated and published in France by the Association des Professeurs de Mathématiques de L’Enseignement Public, the association of French mathematics teaching professionals in school and university. • Killing Democracy, Panorama, June 2001. Panorama, is the official journal of the twelve European Schools governed by the European Union’s Commission for Education. This was an angry polemic against the failure of the European Union to recognise and react to the increasingly undemocratic nature of the European Union and its vast bureaucracy. In February this year Pierre Berthelet, a French jurist, had submitted to the European Parliament an official report warning that the European Union was developing an “excessively repressive federal system” and that its enforcement arm could easily become “a monster.” • Programmed to Fail, or Taught to Succeed? Panorama, May 2002 Published in the official EU European Schools journal Panorama in May 2002, this is an explanation for teachers and parents of why it is that teaching children to learn from teachers simply makes them dependent on the ability of their teachers to communicate ideas. Whilst this is nearly always successful at first, as children grow older and the concepts they have to understand become more important, more and more children find that they are failing - and that they do not know why. This is when we tend to explain that they 'lack aptitude'. This attitude is particularly ruinous in maths and other sciences. The truth is that letting them become dependent on their teachers' abilities rather than improving their own means that they are literally programmed to fail. Available here. • Address to Visiting Transylvanian Mathematics Teaching Students at Budapest University, Panorama, May 2002. A dreadful warning of the fatal dangers of the mathematics classroom. This was not hyperbole. One of my immediate successors in my first school post had tragically killed himself. Available here. • Added Value, Times Education Supplement, January 2003. • Read Aloud - And Learn! From the journal Literacy Today of the National Literacy Trust, June 2003 A very useful article by the editorial and journalist team of the National Literacy Trust. Its fascinating statistics on the near uselessness of trying to convey information to children by talking at them compared with the nearly perfect recall achieved when children discuss ideas themselves should convince any of your colleagues and friends that numeracy cannot be improved separately from literacy. Available here: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Pubs/literacytoday.html • “What is it that you do to our children in your school?” As yet unpublished (and I think quite funny) article originally written for the official teachers magazine of the British Department of Education. Rejected without an explanation presumably because civil servants whose jobs depends on making an endless fuss about hiring adequate teachers do not want to be told that that is not the reason why so many children fail. Children fail because they are not taught to learn. • An unpublished lecture (also waiting for an invitation to be delivered) building on the original thesis, and the experience gained since then, but also discussing the huge problem of further social exclusion and stratification caused by bad teaching not only reinforcing weaker pupils’ lack of confidence but also the thoughtlessness and selfishness of able pupils and the effect on our societies. Also draws on the thinking and writing of my friend Professor Didier Nordon on the University of Bordeaux, in particular his book, Les Mathématiques Pures N’Existent Pas!” (A title which, in its own Gallic fashion, virtually explains itself). FUTURE EVENTS THESE ARE UPDATED ON A MONTHLY BASIS.