Integrating History of Mathematics into the Classroom

Prior to reading the article regarding the integration of mathematics, my preconceived notion of incorporating history into math was simply that math history should be taught to an extent, such that reasoning for the existence of the subject is logical. Moreover, I believe that history of math is crucial for secondary students and university in understanding the fundamental building blocks of concepts for mastery. The history of mathematics and its applications in history enable students to appreciate a sense of feasibility of the relevant concepts being taught. I still remember going to watch a math play at a performing arts center in Surrey as a part of my ninth grade high school math class, and being in awe of Eratosthenes' calculations of Earth's circumference.  Getting out on a field-trip really made me appreciate math in a way where I began to see how profound applications could be.

Reading upon the segment of using historical problems as platform to integrate history into math seemed quite intriguing because of my complete lack of exposure to completing such methods. However, as I read, I began more to think about the many possible positive consequences resulting from such activities amongst secondary students and even university students. If students were given the chance to solve historical methods for prizes or a sense of accomplishment supplemented with friendly competition amongst peers, there lay serious potential for students to delve into the building blocks of the particular concept and bestow upon themselves the duty to solve the problem. Simultaneously, both consciously and sub-consciously learning the history of that particular math concept along the way.

Additionally, deliberating the resources of history, there are serious treasures of history's relevance to math in terms of its resourcefulness for problem solving. History provides a tremendous bank of questions and problems which will be useful in modern day problem solving by expediting the process based on past mathematical questions posed by mathematicians throughout history.

In my contemplating of mathematics, along with other technical subjects such as physics and statistics, I believe that the history of such topics is crucial for adequate learning. However, the process of actual implementation of history into teachings never occurred to me. The number of methods to do so is promising, yet the ones which enable students to work on problems and get their hands dirty with concepts and think are the one which intrigue me the most; historical problems, plays, outdoor learning, and the WWW.