Response to "Why teach math history?"

(The first point will be addressed before the reading is even opened.)

In BC secondary schools, every math course (that I am aware of) is taken for the purpose of pursuing further education or meeting requirements. This belief comes from myself and the conversations I've had with many students; I've heard reasons for taking courses like "I have to take this course to graduate", or "if I take AP Calculus, I won't have to take it in university", but also "I'm taking this course to challenge myself" - while different, is still not one that would align with learning math history. Until the urgency of what comes next changes, I feel that teaching math history is a lower priority versus preparation for whatever paths taking a math course unlocks. At the very least, it shouldn't be a decider on whether one "does well" in a course or not, but I recognize the importance of acknowledging the history of the field. Some ideas to get students thinking would be to name-drop relevant figures and facts when suitable (ex. Euler was a frequent mention in my university math classes, which gave me an appreciation for his contributions to the field), and letting my own respect for these people and stories radiate such that my students can fondly remember the past behind what they are learning.

(The following has been written after reading the article.)

There were many things that made me stop and think when reading the article, with the first being the part on history as a resource; specifically, the idea that many problems in history can be used to reinforce the learning of concepts today. Thinking about the benefits, I liked how in theory, this is a seamless strategy where we can include a historical snippet while still teaching the curriculum. However, I was only able to come up with one example case for a high school setting: the Pythagorean Theorem. Given that it's such a famous and important concept, it's very easy to add a historical spin to it while teaching it. Bringing up past methods to prove it and giving some background on Pythagoras are some ideas that I was able to come up with as I paused.

Aside from that, I also found myself disagreeing with the reading when it suggested more committal ideas like plays or films that would take up limited time. While they do serve to engage students further, I feel that it requires them to have a base level of interest before having an effect on their understanding and appreciation of mathematics history (which could be slowly gained, but should be acquired through careful prescription such that the students are not overloaded). In the reading, I also stopped to think when the argument of "not mathematics" was cited. While I don't completely agree, I still have my concerns with timeframes as well as content focus and curriculum compatibility. Thinking about curriculum compatibility was particularly confounding throughout the reading, as I saw university-level historical examples like complex numbers and the Four Color Theorem where I couldn't easily convert into the BC secondary math curriculum. 

As far as my opinion on teaching mathematics history goes, my previous thoughts are mostly the same at a foundational level (history not being a factor of course assessment), but I have brainstormed more ideas on how to include mathematics history into teaching as I believe it is too important to wholly omit. Such ideas include: having more mention of mathematics history through plentiful snippet use (especially in enrichment/honours versions of math courses), promoting the idea of a personal math development history through thought experiment activities (ex. starting from atomic concepts like 1+1, derive up to the most advanced concepts that you can), and tying in the history of other subjects into whatever we are learning now (such as taking the idea of displacement/velocity/acceleration and linking their graphs to calculus derivatives).