The International Study Group on the Relations between the History and Pedagogy of Mathematics (HPM) gathers mathematicians, mathematics educators and historians of mathematics. Teachers of different school levels are active members of this group. The ICMI milieu always showed an evident interest for the links between history and pedagogy: some early reports on mathematical instruction of the beginning of twentieth century concerned this subject.
The HPM Group organizes regional or international meetings. In particular, every four years a meeting is organized somewhere near the location of that year's ICME (International Congress on Mathematical Education). In 1996 the HPM meeting took place in Braga, Portugal . (A valuable book of papers from that conference has recently appeared, edited by Victor Katz: Using history to teach mathematics: an international perspective, Washington: MAA 2000, ISBN 0-88385-163-6). In 2000 the ICME was in Japan, and the HPM meeting was held in Taiwan, at the National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei (9-14 August 2000). The title of the meeting was "History in mathematics education: challenges for a new millennium". Two-volume proceedings were issued in advance, edited by Wann-Sheng Horng and Fou-Lai Lin.
At ICME-9 in Tokyo/Makuhari there were regular lectures (by Niels Jahnke, Osamu Takenouchi, Ewa Lakoma) concerning history and mathematics education. The Working Group for Action 13 ("History and culture in mathematics education", chaired by Jan van Maanen) concentrated on five majors themes which were identified in the call for papers:
There were also two sessions of HPM in the Affiliated Study Groups timeslots.
An important event in the HPM Group has been the ICMI Study on the role of the history of mathematics in the teaching and learning of mathematics, held in Luminy (Marseille) in April 1998. (The Discussion Document for this Study has appeared in the ICMI Bulletin, No. 42 (June 1997), pp. 9-16.) The resulting book, published in the ICMI NISS series, was presented in a special session of ICME-9 in Japan (J. Fauvel and J. van Maanen, editors: History in Mathematics Education - The ICMI Study. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000. Vol. 6 of the "New ICMI Study Series". ISBN 0-7923-63999-X).
Reports on the activities held at ICME-9, of the Taipei meeting and on the book edited may be found in the HPM Newsletter. Copies of the newsletter may be required to the national contacts of HPM or to the current editor of the newsletter Peter Ramsom (p_ramsom@hotmail.com). It is planned that the HPM Group will have the newsletter on the web.
The new chairperson of HPM is Fulvia Furinghetti (furinghe@dima.unige.it). She was born and studied in Genoa (Italy). At present she teaches "Elementary mathematics from an advanced standpoint" in the Department of mathematics of the university of this town. Her research concerns both mathematics education and history of mathematics. In mathematics education she has studied the impact of beliefs, the problem of proof, strategies for teachers education. In history of mathematics her main interest are mathematical journals of nineteenth century. The study of the role of history in mathematics education and in teacher training is a natural link between these two fields of interest.
As a new chairperson of the International Study Group on the Relations between History and Pedagogy of Mathematics she plans:
As a final remark Fulvia feels that she was fated to be strongly involved in the field of HPM: for about 60 years Gino Loria was professor in her department. He was one of the pioneers in supporting history of mathematics in mathematics teaching and in teacher education. Moreover by the rich library left by Loria to the Department made her historical studies possible.
Fulvia Furinghetti, Chairperson of HPM
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Genova
via Dodecaneso 35, Genova, 16146 Italy
furinghe@dima.unige.it