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<div class=""><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Please find
below the ICMI Newsletter from November 2019.</font></div>
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distribute this newsletter in your networks.</font></div>
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<p><b><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">ICMI Newsletter
November 2019</font></b></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Editors: <br>
Abraham Arcavi (ICMI Secretary General)<br>
Merrilyn Goos (ICMI Vice President)<br>
Lena Koch (ICMI Administrator)<br>
<br>
Contact: <br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:ICMI_Secretary-General@mathunion.org">ICMI_Secretary-General@mathunion.org</a></font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:merrilyn.goos@ul.ie">merrilyn.goos@ul.ie</a></font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:icmi.administrator@mathunion.org">icmi.administrator@mathunion.org</a></font><br>
<br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Graphic design: <br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Ramona Fischer</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<br>
CONTENTS<br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">1. From the desk
of Jill Adler, President of the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction (ICMI).</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">2. ICMI Awardees for
2019 and 2020 – Citations</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">3. ICME14</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">4. News from the CANP
Project: the EIII CEMAS in Asunción and La Paz – Michele Artigue
(ICMI Past President)</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">5. Report on XV CIAEM,
Medellin, Colombia – Yuriko Yamamoto Baldin (ICMI EC
Member-at-Large)</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">6. Once upon a time…
Historical vignettes from the ICMI Archives: The ICMI Logo –
Bernard Hodgson, Curator of the ICMI Archives (former ICMI SG)</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">7. News in brief</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">8. Upcoming Events<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><b>1. From the desk of
Jill Adler, President of the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction (ICMI).</b></font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><u>• ICMI Awards</u><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">It is with enormous
pleasure and happiness that ICMI announces the awardees of the
2019 ICMI Felix Klein, the 2019 Hans Freudenthal and the 2020
Emma Castelnouvo medals. <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font><i><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Warm
congratulations to:</font></i><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Professor Emeritus Tommy
Dreyfus</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Recipient of the ICMI 2019
Felix Klein medal</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Professor Gert Schubring </font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Recipient of the ICMI 2019
Hans Freudenthal medal.</font><br>
<br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Recipient of the ICMI 2020
Emma Castelnouvo medal.</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">We take immense pride
in being able to identify and honor members of our community who
have made such significant contributions to ICMI being the
thriving international mathematics education organization that
it is. The depth and breadth of their collective work is evident
in the citations (see below).</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The ICMI Executive
Committee thanks again the members of the award committees (who as
you know remain anonymous during their term) and their Chairs –
Anna Sfard, (Award Committee for the Freudenthal and Felix Klein
awards) and Konrad Krainer (Award Committee for the Emma
Castelnouvo award). We are aware of the dedication and time
committed to carrying out this wonderful, but demanding activity
of ICMI.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Professors Dreyfus and
Schubring, and a representative of NCTM will be presented their
medals at ICME14 in Shanghai in July, together with the 2017
awardees, Professor Deborah Ball (Felix Klein) and Terezhina
Nunez (Hans Freudenthal).</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><u>• ICME14</u><br>
Our colleagues in Shanghai on the Local Organising Committee and
the International Program Committee under the leadership of ICME14
Convenor Professor Jianpan Wang have been and are hard at work
supporting all the key activities in the Congress. While the
Panels and Survey teams have been at work for some time already,
it is the Topic Study Group (TSG) teams that are currently
reviewing all submissions as they put together their vision for
their TSG at the Congress. We are looking forward to an exciting
congress, and also to the innovation being introduced of the
possibility for all participants to present in one TSG and
participate in a second TSG. <br>
The Solidarity Fund Committee will meet in Shanghai in early
January to review all applications to the fund, and we hope to
continue the practice of being able to support many in our
community for whom the costs of the conference otherwise prohibit
their participation. This is a reminder to all who seek such
support to ensure their applications are in on time. The
application is available at Second Announcement (see <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.icme14.org/static/en/news/59.html?v=1571120235861">https://www.icme14.org/static/en/news/59.html?v=1571120235861</a>
Item 10, page 28 for details and instructions of how to apply).
Please note: <br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <b>The deadline for
applying to the Solidarity Fund is December 20th, 2019</b></font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <u>• Nominations
Committee (NC) for the ICMI Executive Committee (EC) – 2021-2024</u><br>
As the current ICMI Executive Committee (EC) heads towards 2020,
its final year in office, so there is a committee hard at work,
with your help through nominations, to develop the slate for the
next EC that will be elected at the General Assembly (GA) in
Shanghai on July 11, 2020. Under the leadership of ICMI past
president Michèle Artigue as Chair, the current Nominations
Committee (NC), will conclude its work in time to make the slate
available to all Country Representatives a few months before the
GA.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> 2019 is the third year
in office for the current Executive Committee and it has been a
most demanding time. ICME preparations heat up, two ICMI Studies
are working hard to make progress, the ICME15 sites for 2024
have been explored and decided (as announced in the July 2019
issue of this Newsletter) and so on and so on. The travel has
been extensive for office bearers, but we are supported by a
wonderful Executive Committee, whom we take all opportunities to
thank for their ongoing work for ICMI. Part of the travel
commitments are also academic work, and such is the privilege of
my position. I thus share some reflections from my participation
in the recent third International Conference on Mathematics
Textbooks- ICTM3). <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <u>• Reflections</u><br>
In September, I had the privilege of attending and delivering a
talk at the ICMT3 conference in Paderborn, and here I reflect
briefly on the community of mathematics educators whose work on
resources in general and textbooks in particular has flourished in
the past decade. <br>
In my talk, I listed the extensive intellectual resource base that
has been collaboratively built by members of this community
through special issues of key journals, and co-edited and multiple
authored books. While textual resources clearly extend beyond
textbooks, I was still surprised by questions to me both prior to
and following the conference, questions as to whether textbooks
were still relevant? And here I assumed the question referred to
both their use for teaching and learning, and then research into
the practices that unfold.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> The short answer is,
yes, and that across the world, and probably for the vast
majority of those working in mathematics education in school,
and possibly too University, rely on the expertise condensed
into textbooks make available to support teaching and learning.
As I argued in my presentation, the use of any resource,
materials, textual or socio-cultural (e.g. language, time – see
Adler, 2000) and through these access to mathematics, depends on
their transparency. It cannot be taken for granted, that the
intentions, both mathematical and pedagogical, built into these
resources are realized by all who use them. I emphasize “all”
here, in that what is important to understand is the cultural
orientations and values with respect again to both mathematics
and pedagogy that underpin these resources. These are never
easily accessible to all, given the increasing diversity of
civil society across countries.It was fascinating to learn from
research presented, the varying ways in which textbooks and
other resources do come to be used, by whom and with what
effects. Also important, and of course somewhat obvious was a
focus on the increasing availability and use of electronic
textbooks, in many parts of the world. We learned during the
conference of the different forms these take and the challenges
in developing informative research on how different forms
operate as resources for teaching and learning, and whether
textbooks in mathematics education were indeed levers for
educational change. <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> As we head into 2020, and
towards ICME14, we can look forward to ongoing developments of
such themes in our community. And this brings me back to my
reflection on language in the previous newsletter. Unlike
Medellin, where I struggled with Spanish and Portuguese, the
languages of the conference, this smaller conference took place in
English, and it was colleagues from, for example, Japan, China and
Latin America who despite their struggles with English, presented
their work in English. As we head to Shanghai for ICME14, I hope
we all are cognizant and aware of how we interact, given the many
languages brought into a congress space, and the work we all need
to do to optimize our opportunities to learn with and from each
other across our widely different languages, contexts and
conditions. As I noted in the July newsletter, I look forward to
discussing language and other substantive issues when our country
representatives meet in Shanghai for the ICMI General Assembly,
just prior to ICME14.<br>
<br>
<b>2. ICMI Awardees for 2019 and 2020 – Citations</b><br>
<br>
<b>The Felix Klein Medal</b>, with which ICMI honors the most
meritorious members of the mathematics education community, is
given in 2019 to <b>Tommy Dreyfus</b>, Professor Emeritus at Tel
Aviv University, Israel, in recognition of his life-time
achievement. This distinction acknowledges Professor Dreyfus’s
contribution to research as well as his leading role in shaping
and consolidating the research community and in fostering
communication between researchers.<br>
For four decades, Tommy Dreyfus’s research has been systematically
deepening our understanding of mathematics learning. Trained as a
mathematical physicist, Tommy has been drawing in this work on his
deep understanding of mathematics and his first-hand familiarity
with ways in which mathematical ideas come into being and evolve.
Since the late 1970s and for the next two decades his research has
been focusing on students’ conceptualization of mathematical
objects such as function, and on the role of intuition,
visualization and aesthetics in mathematical thinking. With years,
his interests have been gradually shifting from the individual
student to learning-teaching processes of the classroom. In the
last twenty years, his empirical and conceptual work has been
devoted to the study of epistemic activities such as proving and
abstracting. These efforts resulted in the theory known as AiC –
Abstraction in Context, which he developed with Baruch Schwarz and
Rina Hershkowitz. Conceived in the late 1990s, the AiC framework
has become increasingly influential. Since its inception, it has
generated much empirical research all over the world. The theory
has been found to be useful also to teachers, whom it provides
with tools for monitoring student learning. As impressive in its
scope, breadth, depth and impact as Professor Dreyfus‘s research
is, it constitutes only a part of the contribution for which he is
honored today with this special distinction. Another outstanding
part of his work is his ongoing project of shaping and
consolidating the international community of research in
mathematics education, a goal that he tries to attain in multiple
ways. First and foremost, through his extensive editorial work he
has been setting standards and giving directions for research in
mathematics education. Particularly influential has been his
30-year long association with Educational Studies in Mathematics,
which included his three-year long term as the editor-in-chief.
Professor Dreyfus has also been serving in, and shaping, numerous
professional organizations, with PME (the international group for
the Psychology of Mathematics Education) and ERME (the European
Society for Research in Mathematics Education) among them. <br>
<br>
In addition, he played key roles in numerous professional
committees in Israel, Europe and America. His influence on
research and on policy directly affecting mathematics teaching is
keenly felt over the world.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> In all these
activities, Professor Dreyfus has been consistently promoting
cross-discursive dialogues. He has done this by organizing
international meetings, establishing trans-continental
collaborative research projects, appearing world-wide as an
invited speaker and by extensive mentoring in his own country
and beyond. Probably the most important and innovative among
Professor Dreyfus’s consolidating activities have been his
multifarious efforts to spur and improve communication among
researchers working within differing theoretical frameworks.
Being concerned about the fragmentation of the field of
mathematics education, Professor Dreyfus has been looking for
ways in which community members can engage in a productive
dialogue across discursive boundaries. These attempts began with
his own cross-theoretical research collaborations. It continued
with his conceptual work on the possibility of “networking
theories”, the activity of employing multiple theories in the
attempt to produce a synergetic, cumulative effect. Through
these initiatives, Professor Dreyfus has contributed to changing
the dominant narratives about theoretical diversity. With his
help, the multiplicity of research discourses is now seen less
as a problem to solve than as an opportunity to embrace.</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Born in Switzerland and
now living in Israel, Tommy is fluent in a number of languages,
which makes him particularly well equipped for the project of
consolidating the international community. After his 1975
doctorate in mathematical physics from the University of Geneva,
endowed with several prestigious fellowships and awards, Tommy
began visiting universities all over the world. Since then, he
never stopped. In parallel to his work at the Weizmann Institute
and at the Center for Technological Education in Holon, and later
as a full professor of mathematics education at Tel Aviv
University, Tommy served as a visiting professor in 14
universities over the world, including in Canada, Germany,
Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the
USA. On all these occasions, he spent much time teaching and
working with both young and seasoned researchers. By all accounts,
he left an indelible mark in all the places he visited. <br>
<br>
This owes, among others, to his ability to communicate fluently
and easily, to his sensitivity to other cultures and to his
general sense of inclusiveness. His willingness to listen and to
share his own insights and his devotion to a common effort of
understanding and improving mathematics education have touched
everyone with whom he has come into contact. Officially retired
since 2015, he remains as active and engaged as ever.<br>
To sum up, over the 40 years of his career, Professor Dreyfus has
been contributing to our collective endeavor of promoting
mathematics education in great many ways: as a researcher, as an
editor, as an organizer and policy adviser, and as a teacher and
mentor. So far, he has published more than 120 research papers and
book chapters, 9 edited volumes, and diverse teaching materials.
His writings continue to be read and cited widely, and research
programs he initiated or helped establish continue to thrive and
inform the field. Even now in his retirement, he continues to
shape the field, to foster young researchers and to influence
research and policy, both in his own country and abroad. For all
this and his many other contributions to our community, Tommy
Dreyfus is an eminently worthy candidate for the Felix Klein
Award.<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <b>The Hans
Freudenthal Medal</b>, with which ICMI honors innovative,
consistent, highly influential and still on-going programs of
research in mathematics education, is being awarded in 2019 to
Professor <b>Gert Schubring</b>, a long-time member of the
Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik at Bielefeld University,
Germany, and an extended visiting professor at the Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This award is being granted
to Gert Schubring in recognition of his outstanding contribution
to research on the history of mathematics education.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Gert’s research of
over four decades has opened new, important avenues of research
into the phenomenon of mathematics education. Trained as a
mathematician, Gert has been a member of the Institut für
Didaktik der Mathematik since 1973, when this interdisciplinary
research institute for mathematics education was founded. In his
doctoral dissertation, defended in 1977, Gert wrote on the
genetic principle in approaching historical research in
mathematics. Afterwards, he extended his interests, producing
wide-ranging writings on the history of mathematics education
within and across countries, and publishing on the history of
mathematics. One of Schubring’s earliest publications came out
of the symposium, “Comparative Study of the Development of
Mathematical Education as a Professional Discipline in Different
Countries”, presented at the Fourth ICME conference in Berkeley
in 1980. This set the stage for the mathematics education
community’s reflection on itself as a discipline, and how its
own social context had framed its objects and methods of study.
By inviting us to place ourselves in front of a mirror, Gert
also sparked interest in the history of earliest efforts in
mathematics education, including the work of Felix Klein, on
which Gert has recently published the important book, The Legacy
of Felix Klein (2019, Springer). </font><font face="Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">His seminal works have
helped to realize the importance of considering the social
context in the study of the history of mathematics education. If
this field of research is now well acknowledged, it is in large
part due to his theoretical and methodological contributions, as
well as to his leadership in scientific communication.</font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Another, related but
separate, strand of Gert’s pioneering work was the study of
textbooks, which he began in his investigations on the evolution
of mathematics teaching in Latin America. This is yet another
area of research that he helped to recognize as worth attention.
In 2017 he also chaired the International Program Committee for
the Second International Conference on Mathematics Textbook
Research and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Schubring has also laid
out the formal structures that helped in turning the study of the
history of mathematics education into an academic field. He was
the founding co-organiser of International Conference on the
History of Mathematics Education (ICHME), a forum that since 2009
has already met six times. After leading the Study Group on the
‘History of Teaching and Learning Mathematics’ at the 10th ICME
conference in 2004, Gert became the founding editor of the
International Journal for the History of Mathematics Education.
Gert also co-edited the Handbook on the History of Mathematics
Education published in 2014, in which he contributed to four of
the handbook chapters. He is co-editor of the new book series
International Studies in the History of Mathematics and its
Teaching, which includes the 2019 volume he edited himself, titled
Interfaces Between Mathematical Practices and Mathematical
Education. <br>
An important aspect of Gert Schubring’s work was his straddling of
the communities of the history of mathematics and of mathematics
education. His own book in the former field, Generalization, Rigor
and Intuition, published in 2005, is a major reference in the
history of mathematics focused on 17th–19th–century mathematics.
Additionally, several publications in mathematics education
journals (such as For the Learning of Mathematics) introduced
tools and concepts from the history of mathematics, such as
methodologies for analyzing historical texts, that greatly enrich
mathematics education research. <br>
Similarly, Gert brought ideas in mathematics education, such as
the notion of “mathematics for all” back into the fold of the
history of mathematics, to examine what kind of knowledge
mathematics has been taken to be in different cultures and
historical periods. <br>
For decades, Gert has been actively promoting the study of the
history of the field of mathematics education, while
simultaneously conducting significant historical studies of his
own. No other researcher has had a greater impact on establishing
the social history of mathematics education as a dynamic field of
scholarly endeavor. His work has not only made us aware of the
past of mathematics education but has also provided important
insights into mathematics education as it stands today and sets
directions for its future. It informs current teaching by showing
ways in which historical mathematical texts can inspire pedagogy.
It makes us aware of future possibilities and of the fact that
they do not have to be merely determined by the past, but rather
can be moulded by new understandings of past practices, values and
ways of thinking. All these important contributions make Professor
Gert Schubring an eminently deserving recipient of the Hans
Freudenthal Medal for 2019.<br>
<br>
<br>
ICMI is delighted to announce that the 2020 <b>Emma Castelnuovo
Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Practice of
Mathematics Education</b> goes to <b>NCTM – the National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics (USA and Canada)</b> – in
recognition of 100 years of development and implementation of
exceptionally excellent and influential work in the practice of
mathematics education.<br>
<br>
Founded in 1920, NCTM is the world’s largest mathematics education
organization, with 40,000 members and more than 230 state,
provincial, and local affiliate organizations and other affiliates
whose scope covers the USA and Canada.<br>
The Award Committee found evidence to fulfill all criteria related
to the Emma Castelnuovo Award. In the following, some exemplary
activities of NCTM‘s past 30 years are highlighted. These
activities fall into a wide range of domains – principles and
standards as foundations for policy and practice, publications
including research journals, professional development, legislative
and policy leadership, and international collaboration.<br>
In 1989, NCTM presented Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for
School Mathematics, which turned out to be a highly influential
document, not only in North America, but all over the world. This
document was followed by a series of further book-length reports
aimed at establishing a broad framework to guide reform in school
mathematics, Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics
(1991), Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (1995),
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000), Curriculum
Focal Points (2006), Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical
Success for All (2014) and Catalyzing Change in High School
Mathematics: Initiating Critical Conversations (2018).<br>
Since its inception in 1920, NCTM has published professional
journals for teachers of mathematics. Starting with January 2020,
a single journal Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12,
published 12 times a year, will replace what has been for the past
30 years three journals. In 1970, NCTM began publishing the
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, one of the world’s
first journals devoted to this subject. These periodic
publications are supplemented by an extensive publication
catalogue for teachers at all levels. Some NCTM publications have
been translated into other languages, including Arabic, Chinese,
German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. <br>
For the professional development of teachers, principals, and
other stakeholders important for mathematics teaching, NCTM holds
an annual meeting and exposition along with three regional
meetings each year, with a combined attendance of about 25,000. In
addition, NCTM offers multiple professional development
activities, professional services, and resources via its webpage.
NCTM’s Mathematics Education Trust (MET), established in 1976,
provides funds directly to classroom teachers, affiliates, and
institutions to enhance mathematics education. MET offers 30
grants annually, totaling USD 125,000. In addition, it offers
scholarships, award programs, and – usually two – annual lifetime
achievement awards.<br>
NCTM is influentially engaged in constructive policy discussions
among all stakeholders (in particular in the USA), focusing on
improving mathematics teaching for all students. This process is
supported by the NCTM Advocacy Toolkit, a collection of materials
which provides NCTM members with tools and the guidance they need
to advocate for mathematics and education.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> For spreading NCTM
ideas internationally and for establishing contacts and
collaboration worldwide, NCTM founded the International
Corresponding Societies, currently with 19 organizations in all
continents, and has supported several initiatives with educators
in Latin, Central, and South America.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> NCTM’s work has
influenced the efforts by teachers, researchers, administrators,
and other stakeholders to foster excellence in the practice of
mathematics education. Here are some selected quotations from
letters supporting NCTM’s nomination for the Emma Castelnuovo
Award.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">An internationally
well-known mathematics educator stresses: “I have never lived or
worked in the United States, and yet, as a teacher and as an
academic, I was aware of the work of the NCTM. I drew on their
resources and publications knowing that I could access a wealth
of high quality materials developed by expert practitioners in
the field. … (T)he NCTM Principles and Standards and the
Curriculum Focal Points are curricular documents that I return
to frequently when looking at putting together mathematics
teacher education courses for pre- and in-service teachers in
ways that ensure breadth and depth, with inclusion of the big
ideas in mathematics. I have often passed these documents on to
students from many parts of the world to use to think about the
relative emphases and absences in their own national and
regional curricula. Later, as an academic, I made widespread use
of articles published across the raft of NCTM journals. … The
NCTM has worked tirelessly to advocate for high quality
mathematical access for all children. ... The NCTM is an
organization that has succeeded in doing this kind of work at a
scale that is bigger than any other organization that I can
think of.” </font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> An internationally
well-known mathematics educator from the USA emphasizes, among
other considerations, the important role NCTM plays in supporting
ICMI activities, for example by providing grants to NCTM members
for attending ICME conferences, and by supporting the writing and
distribution of documents about mathematics education in the USA
since ICME-9 in 2000. <br>
Finally, here is the voice of a former mathematics teacher in the
USA: “NCTM has been an integral part of every stage of my nearly
50-year career in mathematics education, from classroom teacher,
to school and district supervisor, to state mathematics director,
to my varied leadership efforts that continue at the state, local,
national, and international levels. … It is clear that the
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has been the voice of
mathematics education for at least these past five decades of my
personal involvement. More than that, there is no doubt in my mind
that the Council has also served as the leader within our
profession – articulating a shared vision of professional
mathematics educators, supporting and disseminating research
behind that vision, and providing resources for the classroom and
the board room to make that vision a reality. NCTM is absolutely
indispensable to anyone who cares about or works in any area
related to mathematics teaching and learning.”<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> There are many more
such quotations that could have been included. It is fully
evident that NCTM is an outstanding organization that well
deserves the recognition of the Emma Castelnuovo Award for
excellence in the practice of mathematics education. <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <b>3. ICME14</b><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> PLEASE CAREFULLY
FOLLOW THE NEWS ON AN ONGOING BASIS AT ICME14.ORG</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <b>4. News from the CANP
Project – by Michèle Artigue</b><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Those who regularly
read the ICMI Newsletter have already heard about the CANP
project. It was launched by ICMI in 2010, with the support of
UNESCO and IMU, for strengthening the educational capacity of
all those involved in teacher preparation and professional
development, creating sustained and effective regional networks
of teachers, mathematics educators and mathematicians, and also
linking them to international support (see <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.mathunion.org/icmi/activities/developing-countries-support/capacity-networking-project-canp">https://www.mathunion.org/icmi/activities/developing-countries-support/capacity-networking-project-canp</a>).
Within one decade, CANP has become a major ICMI-IMU project in
developing countries. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> The CEMAS network
(Communidad de Educación Matemática de América del Sur) was
created during CANP5, which was held in Lima, Peru in February,
2016, for Andean countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru) and
Paraguay. And, in September 2019, it organized the first EIII
CEMAS (Encuentro Internacional de Iniciativas Innovadoras) with
the generous support of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y
Tecnología (CONACYT) of Paraguay.</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> As explained in the
document presenting these meetings: “the main purpose of the EIII
is to contribute to the improvement of the quality of mathematics
education through the exchange of initiatives that promote teacher
training and educational innovation, and the updating of knowledge
and skills in teachers”. Their specific objectives are the
following: <br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> “3.1 To contribute
to the articulation of efforts in mathematics education at the
national and international levels. </font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> 3.2. To be a space where
specialists and researchers in mathematics education can present
their initiatives, which should aim at strengthening the
competences of both pre-service and in-service teachers. </font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> 3.3. To promote the link
between researchers, institutions and teachers in general, so that
the exchange of initiatives becomes concrete.</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> 3.4. To provide, during
the meetings, specialized updating for teachers of the Mathematics
Area at all levels of education. </font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">3.5. To contribute to the
appreciation of the mathematics teacher as a professional with a
high level of preparation and a fundamental participant in the
training of students by dissemination among the main means of
communication and information channels.” (my translation)</font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The first EIII CEMAS
took place in Asunción (Paraguay) from September 11 to September
13, 2019. It was jointly organized by the CEMAS, the Paraguayan
Mathematical Society (SMP), OMAPA (Organización
Multidisciplinaria de Apoyo a Profesores y Alumnos), with the
support of ICMI and of the Universidad Comunera del Paraguay
where the event took place. It gathered more than 200 passionate
participants: primary and secondary teachers coming from all
Paraguayan regions, student teachers, teacher educators and
researchers in mathematics education and in mathematics. The
three days, perfectly organized, offered a very rich and intense
program combining eight plenary lectures covering both general
themes and the presentation and analysis of specific innovative
and research projects, most of them carried out in the region,
and four 1h45 slots for parallel sessions proposing workshops on
diverse topics. The event concluded with a round table where
participants discussed regional problems with the international
experts invited. In fact, among the 20 presenters, 7 were from
Paraguay, 9 from Peru, Ecuador and Chile, and four from Brazil,
France, Mexico and USA. Unfortunately, Angel Ruiz from Costa
Rica, past vice-president of ICMI and organizer of CANP 2, and
Beatriz Macedo from Uruguay who had supported the launching of
CANP when she was working at UNESCO, could not attend. This was
also the case for Yuriko Baldin Yamamoto, who has been the ICMI
liaison officer for CANP 5 and accompanied the CEMAS network
since 2016. </font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> This first realization
of EIII in Asunción gave the perfect image of what is made
possible when, at the national level, there is a real synergy
between communities, and when this synergy also benefits from
regional and international support. Moreover, the communicative
energy of Gabriela Gómez Pasquali, the Paraguayan representative
of CEMAS and main organizer, was certainly decisive for the
success of this event. An emotional moment for me occurred at
the closing ceremony when Gabriela asked participants, category
by category, region by region, to stand up, making clear the
outreach of this event, and also when one teacher went to the
stage to express his personal feeling about the event. He did so
in Guarani. I did not understand a word, but when he finished,
Gabriela asked who had understood his discourse and all
Paraguayan participants raised their hands! <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> When this first EIII
CEMAS ended, some of the international presenters (Carlos Sabino
and Augusta Osorio Gonzales from Peru, Freddy Rivadeneira Loor
from Ecuador, Patrick Scott from the USA, and I) went to La Paz,
Bolivia where a second realization of EIII was planned from
September 16 to September 18 at the Universidad Mayor de San
Andrés with the support of the Faculdad de Ingeniería y de
Ciencias Puras y Naturales – Carrera de Matemática, la Olimpiada
Matemática Boliviana, ICMI and the French Embassy. This second
realization was quite different as, despite the many contacts
taken with regional authorities by Sonia Cordero, the CEMAS
Bolivian member in charge of the organization, we discovered that
very few participants had registered (39), and not all of them
were able to attend all sessions as they had not obtained the
authorization from their administration - the event was to place
during their teaching time. The schedule was reorganized, reducing
the number of parallel workshops, and moving the plenary lectures
to the afternoon to encourage better attendance. This resulted in
a reduction in the number of contributions, especially to the
detriment of those prepared by Bolivian colleagues. Despite these
difficulties, this event made it possible to identify a group of
very motivated teachers ready to contribute to the CEMAS network
which obviously needs to be reinforced in Bolivia. It is also
planned to present CEMAS activities and some workshops prepared by
Bolivian colleagues at the congress organized by the Bolivian
Mathematics Society, next November. In this problematic situation,
I could also measure the commitment of the CEMAS members coming
from other countries, including Patrick Scott, and their desire to
offer support, to reinforce exchanges and collaborations, to find
practical solutions, showing that the CEMAS community does exist
and has a future. <br>
<br>
<b>5. Report on XV CIAEM, Medellin, Colombia – Yuriko Yamamoto
Baldin </b><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> In the July 2019 issue
of the ICMI Newsletter, the president of ICMI, Jill Adler,
reported on the ICMI Executive Committee meeting that took place
in Montevideo, Uruguay, and was hosted generously by the
Mathematical Education Society of Uruguay, whose annual national
conference followed immediately after the EC meeting. ICMI
Vice-Presidents Merrilyn Goos and Luis Radford, and
Secretary-General Abraham Arcavi gave, respectively, the opening
plenary lecture, plenary talks and workshops in this National
Conference on Mathematics Education. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Jill acknowledged the
tradition of ICMI supporting local communities and gaining
knowledge through interactions with local colleagues. She
referred to this again in her subsequent report on the XV CIAEM
that followed the Montevideo Meeting, from May 5 to 10, in
Medellín, Colombia – still in the Latin American community –
hosted by the University of Medellín and the University of
Antioquia. The CIAEM is the most important conference on
mathematical education of the Americas, founded in 1961 by IACME
– Inter American Committee on Mathematical Education as an
affiliated organization to ICMI (<a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.ciaem-iacme.org">www.ciaem-iacme.org</a>).
The CIAEM is organized every four years, and the XV CIAEM had
the participation of 25 countries from Europe, Asia, Africa, and
the Americas, with 700 participants including hundreds of school
teachers from the local community. The official languages of the
conference were Spanish and Portuguese. <br>
</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> The important reflection
made by Jill in the last ICMI Newsletter referred to the direct
interaction with the local community and their works as “an
experience not possible through reading about them or interacting
in an international conference”. Such reflection highlights the
issue of language in developing effective communication as one
topic of discussion for ICMI activities. My own impression of the
XV CIAEM is about how the invited speakers worked on communicating
with the conference delegates. None of these plenary speakers was
from Spanish-Portuguese speaking countries: Jill (ICMI president)
is from South Africa, Ferdinando Arzarello (former ICMI president)
is from Italy, and Yoshinori Shimizu (co-chair of ICMI Study 24)
is from Japan. Ferdinando delivered his lecture in Spanish,
whereas assistance in the form of simultaneous translations by
Patrick Scott (for Jill) and by Yuriko (for Yoshi) was key to the
success in communicating the essence of their talks. In addition,
sessions offering a “Dialogue with the plenary speaker” were an
important activity in the scientific program that allowed the
audience to interact directly with the invited lecturers, thus
supplementing the translation of their talks.<br>
Around 400 papers were presented: in plenary and parallel
sessions, plenary tables, mini-courses, thematic sessions, short
communications, workshops and posters. Some 50 senior
personalities in the international mathematical education
community presented their research. During the event, the Luis
Santaló Medal was awarded to Salvador Llinares (Spain) and the
Marshall Stone Medal to Hugo Barrantes (Costa Rica) and José
Chamoso (Spain). In the words of Ángel Ruiz, the president of
CIAEM and former ICMI Vice-President, “the XV CIAEM once again
showed that this congress is the reference of the highest
scientific level and intellectual impact in the Mathematical
Education of the Americas.” The next CIAEM will take place in
Lima, Peru, from July 30 to August 4, 2023.<br>
<br>
<b>6. Once upon a time… Historical vignettes from the ICMI
Archives: The ICMI Logo - Bernard Hodgson, Curator of the ICMI
Archive </b><br>
It would be most common nowadays for an organization like ICMI to
promptly adopt a logo in order to facilitate its visual
identification. But such was not the custom when ICMI was
established. As a matter of fact, it is only in the early
twenty-first century, almost a hundred years after its inception,
that ICMI officially adopted a logo—a few years before its mother
organisation, the International Mathematical Union, would itself
choose a logo.<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> It may be worth
mentioning at the outset that the International Congresses on
Mathematical Education (ICMEs), a major strand of the ICMI
activities since 1969, soon developed the tradition of adopting
a logo for each of these events. But that will be a topic for
another vignette.</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> The existence (or
absence) of a logo is reflected in particular in the letterhead
used in the official correspondence of ICMI officers. For
instance, most of the letters which circulated amongst the IMU and
ICMI presidents and secretaries during the presidency of Hans
Freudenthal (1967-1970) would be either without any letterhead at
all, or using the official stationery of the academic institution
to which the sender was attached. Here is an example from a
letter of Freudenthal to the IMU Secretary. <br>
<br>
An interesting case is seen in documents from André Delessert,
ICMI Secretary for two terms (1963-1970). <br>
<br>
One can see that in this letterhead ICMI has become “ICMT”, the
“T” most likely arising from the translation to “teaching” of the
word “enseignement”, from the traditional name of ICMI in French
shown therein—information about the various names originally used
in French, German and English to refer to the body now called ICMI
can be found in Furinghetti [3, p. 2].<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Various letterheads
were developed from one ICMI Executive Committee (EC) to the
other. Here is a nice sample of letterhead, used during the two
terms (1983-1990) when Jean-Pierre Kahane and Geoffrey Howson
were respectively President and Secretary—with a special twist
in the design for the acronym ICMI. </font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Underneath this heading
were listed the names and professional addresses of the four ICMI
officers (President, Vice-Presidents and Secretary)—in those days
of course without any email contact!<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> When I started my
first term on the ICMI EC, in 1999, the practice was still for
the secretary to cobble up in a similar vein with a word
processor a (hopefully decent) “homemade” letterhead. But that
practice was soon to change, as that EC was promptly led in a
direction that unquestionably required the adoption of a logo:
the creation of the first two ICMI Awards, formally decided by
the ICMI EC at its 2000 meeting. The inaugural set of awardees
were announced in 2003 and presented during the opening ceremony
of the ICME-10 congress in 2004. As the main tangible tokens
for the awards consist of a medal and a certificate, it was seen
as essential to represent ICMI via a logo on these artefacts.
The ICMI logo was finally adopted by the EC early in 2004 ([5]).</font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Following various calls
for comments and suggestions about a “concept” for the logo of
ICMI, more than 35 proposals had been received by the EC, heading
in very diverse directions. It was far from easy for the members
of the ICMI EC to reach a conclusion. Among the criteria for the
final decision were issues of simplicity and efficiency of the
design, as well as flexibility for the use of the logo in varied
contexts (medals, letterhead, posters, book covers, website,
etc.). <br>
<br>
The ICMI logo was designed by two students from the School of
visual arts of Université Laval (Québec, Canada). The basic
structure of the logo is a (blue) square, a simple geometrical
object which is one of the very first shapes met by a child,
explain the designers, and also a structure conveying stability,
solidity and support. The letters I, C, M, I, integrated into the
logo so as to facilitate recognition, are represented through
(white) simple forms introducing freshness, rhythm and movement,
and recalling basic mathematical symbols. The apertures created
by the letters in the border of the figure reinforce its dynamics
and suggest outreach commitment. (More comments on the logo can
be found in [6].)<br>
<br>
Since its introduction 15 years ago, the ICMI logo has been used
in many contexts, sometimes with small variations, for instance in
the colors—but the blue and white combination is the “official”
one. Here is an example of its use on a business card from the
time of the presidency of Michèle Artigue (2007-2009), her
personalized stationery being set up similarly with part of the
information appearing at the top of the page and part at the
bottom, as on the card.<br>
<br>
<i>Sources</i><br>
[1] Freudenthal, H. (1967). Letter to Otto Frostman, IMU
Secretary, 20 December. IMU Archive, Box 14B—International
Commission on Mathematical Instruction, 1967-1980.<br>
[2] Delessert, A. (1969). Letter to Otto Frostman, IMU Secretary,
22 March. IMU Archive, Box 14B—International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction, 1967-1980. <br>
[3] Furinghetti, F. (2019). Challenges, hopes, actions and
tensions in the early years of the International Commission on the
Teaching of Mathematics. In A. Karp (Ed.), National Subcommissions
of ICMI and their Role in the Reform of Mathematics Education (pp.
1-34). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.<br>
[4] Howson, G. (1984). Letter to Olli Lehto, IMU Secretary, 8
May. IMU Archive, Box 14D—International Commission on Mathematical
Instruction, 1983-1985. <br>
[5] Hodgson, B.R. (2004). A logo for ICMI. ICMI Bulletin 54, 5. [<a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICMI/files/Publications/ICMI_bulletin/54.pdf">www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICMI/files/Publications/ICMI_bulletin/54.pdf</a>]
<br>
[6] Hodgson, B.R. (2004). About the ICMI logo. ICMI Bulletin 55,
16-17. [<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICMI/files/Publications/ICMI_bulletin/55.pdf">www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/ICMI/files/Publications/ICMI_bulletin/55.pdf</a>]<br>
</font><br>
<b><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">7. News in brief</font></b><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> • The ICMI Study 25
conference on “Teachers of Mathematics Working and Learning in
Collaborative Groups” will be held in Lisbon, Portugal on February
3-7, 2020. See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://icmistudy25.ie.ulisboa.pt/">http://icmistudy25.ie.ulisboa.pt/</a></font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">• The study volume for
ICMI Study 24 on “School Mathematics Curriculum Reforms:
Challenges, Changes and Opportunities” is in preparation. The aim
is to present the volume at ICME14.</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> </font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">• The ICMI Nomination
Committee is in the latest stages of its work. The slate from
which the next Executive Committee will be elected by the Country
Representatives at the General Assembly (July 12, 2020, Shanghai)
will be made public in May 2020.</font><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> <br>
<b>8. Upcoming Events</b><br>
• ICMI Study 25: Teachers of Mathematics Working and Learning
in Collaborative Groups to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, February
3-7, 2020. <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://icmistudy25.ie.ulisboa.pt/">http://icmistudy25.ie.ulisboa.pt/</a><br>
• 14th International Congress on Mathematical Education
(ICME14), from July 12 to 19, 2020, Shanghai, China, <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.icme14.org/static/en/index.html">http://www.icme14.org/static/en/index.html</a><br>
• ICME15 will take place in Sydney, Australia on July 7-14,
2024.<br>
<br>
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