Mathematics History And Mathematics Education In Middle School

The 1970s saw the establishment of a new research field in mathematics focusing on the relationship between the history and pedagogy of mathematics. From the end of the 19th century on, many of the American historians and educators of mathematics have dealt with the educational functions of the history of mathematics, greatly promoting the foundation and development of HPM. The history of mathematics can arouse the students'interest, make them draw mathematical thoughts from the original woks, let students absorb mathematicians'original thoughts and social cultural information from firsthand reference, help the students understand and appreciate mathematics , enforce the students'confidence when they encounter the difficulties or frustrations, offer reference for compiling courses. These functions not only can be used for reference in our practice of using in the mathematics education in middle schools, but have the most math teachers build up the belief: the history of math is no longer useless learning.While looking into the history of math, we will discover that it is mainly on the original and development of math conception, methods and thoughts. What's more, it concerns about the politics, culture, and economics as well.The history of mathematical more than the record of math achievement. The development of math is always not so smooth; it is full of hesitation and difficulties, even in face of the crisis. The history of math is also the record that the mathematicians who devoted themselves into overcoming the difficulties and solving problems. Examples like the found of irrational number and non-geometry, are uncountable in the history. With the help of it, people will understand better the real process of math creation, which was fixed in textbook in form of principles; therefore, we can benefit a lot from our ancestors and be very confident of ourselves.So, the history of math is so important that we should say without knowing it, one wouldn't understand math deeply. About it, any mathematicians who have real knowledge and deep in-sight can experience it for themselves. Just as the famous mathematician Leibniz pointed out"knowing how the great invention comes into being, particularly those which are not by accident, is of great value. Not only the history will speak highly of the inventor, which encouraged others to win the honors, but also by those examples, the art and method of invention are promoted."Pioncare says: if we should predict the future of math, the proper way is to know the history and development of the subject. Since it is important to know the history of math, its application in teaching practice is worth paying a great deal of attention.In the new subject reform, the general aim of math subject is divided into four sides: knowledge and techniques, math thinking, problem solving, motions and attitudes. However, now days in china, the effective connections is lacked which could make students mature in motions, attitude and value, while most math teachers lay stress on students learning math knowledge. In《math subject standard》, it is clearly emphasized that the function of math subject that help students with formation of their conduct and characteristics is not completely carried out, especially in training the characters through mathematic method, math history, culture, and aesthetical education. In this way it is necessary to include some accessional material. Such as the history of math, the formation of some math conception, the questions, introduction of mathematicians, and the application of math teach in modern life and so onRules of practice and interest are necessary when we choose math material once the history of math is used in math education. Thus students can achieve the goals, such as learning math knowledge, experience multi-culture from different countries as well as broadening their outlook.