Final Blog Post

As I look back on my blogposts for 442 there are two themes that stick out to me - practicality and simplicity. Maybe the simplicity of the lives of ancient civilizations allowed for practical mathematics. I in no way express any negative connotation by saying such a thing; in fact I think the simplicity is something lost in today's world. Regardless, I find the importance in such a fundamental approach to exploring mathematics. This course has taught me to not neglect the origins of math concepts and perhaps starting at these places where mathematics originated can make for a more fulfilling lesson. If we take something such as quadratic equations and just move forward with applications and how to solve such equations without first exploring how Al-Khwarizmi came to discover it, we would be eliminating a potentially interesting historical lesson for students. We also get to do math through investigation and exploration. 

I'm realizing now that this is because of the realizations that we had as students in 442. We also learned about the origins of so many math concepts we knew no history about. We got to learn about ancient Chinese mathematics and about the many contributions that were made through these ancient civilizations. We were able to learn math history from a lens outside the perspective of one that is Eurocentric and that is so, so important. 

I'm realizing as well the importance of math history in terms of critical mathematics education. It takes a deconstructing approach and an important step in deconstructing current worldviews is to offer accurate representations of history that haven't been distorted by colonization. 

It was wonderful to see all these things of whose history I knew nothing about and furthermore thought that they were only created by Europeans in ancient Greece. I got to see that there is rich history in other places in the world and more importantly, places that actually relate to my own identity.