Why Teach Math History?

Never in my 21 years of living, have I ever needed to understand the history of mathematics. From a young age, my parents enrolled me in Kumon which is a Japanese educational tutoring institutional that aims to teach young students mathematics. At Kumon, the method was very similar to how I was taught in school; the method was based around repetition and doing the same problems over and over again until it was muscle memory. Therefore looking back at my school days, we were never introduced into any history behind the findings, and rather focused on the technique per say. 

After reading the article, and enrolling in this class, I do truly think that understanding the origins of mathematics would be interesting to add to learning and should be added into school curriculums. We are very prone to figuring things out and getting to the bottom of different technologies such as figuring out how to safely come up with a vaccine to be able to prevent COVID-19 from spreading more. So why would figuring out and getting to the bottom of where mathematics originated from be any different? 

The reading also touched on how “mathematics is an evolving and human subject" and this resonated with me as most integral parts of our society and how things work are to do with mathematics, especially algebra where we have used calculus to understand aspects of physics for example. Therefore, all in all, I think it would be highly beneficial and spark interest in the understanding of young academics! 

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