From the desk of Anjum Halai, Vice-President with Merrilyn Goos of ICMI 2021-2024

It gives me great pleasure to engage with the mathematics education community through this Newsletter.  I am one the two Vice-Presidents of ICMI elected to serve on the Executive Committee from 2021-2024 and here I attempt to provide a glimpse into my role as a member of ICMI EC.

I have a deep interest in promoting mathematics education in diverse educational contexts. My experience is mostly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) which are largely outside the Euro-Western contexts. There is a strong tradition of mathematics education research in the Euro-Western contexts with concomitant developments in mathematical instruction, and now with relevance to the increasingly digital and technologically driven world.  I realize the significance, on the one hand, of promoting mathematics education in LMIC schools and classrooms and, on the other hand, of ensuring that voice from/of LMIC mathematics community is heard in global and international forums of mathematicians and mathematics educators.

I have been a regular participant in the International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME). It was at the ICME-12 in Korea that Bill Barton, then President of ICMI (2010-2012) approached me to explore the possibility of hosting a Capacity and Network Project (CANP) in Tanzania where I was working at the time. I thus learnt about the objectives of ICMI, which resonated with me and therefore I readily agreed to Bill’s proposal. Subsequently, I worked with ICMI President Ferdinando Arzarello (2013-16) to hold the CANP in Tanzania. Later with support from President Jill Adler (2017-2020), I led the team in East Africa to hold the 5th AFRICME in Tanzania.

I engage in a range of activities as a ICMI Vice-President.  These include looking at all CANPs by working with the regional CANP liaison officers, to ensure a systemic, sustainable, and locally grounded infrastructure for this important initiative. I represent ICMI in the IMU Commission for Developing Countries and in its sub-group on ‘Diversity’. These forums recognize that achievement in mathematics conflates with issues such as gender, poverty, language, ethnicity, and rural/urban location.  In the forthcoming virtual International Congress of Mathematicians, I would present and/or lead panels on some of these issues of salience for a diverse and inclusive mathematics education.

My colleague Vice-President Merrilyn Goos and I worked iteratively on the publication ‘Teaching mathematics for sustainable development’ included in the UNESCO toolkit entitled Mathematics for Action. This is a toolkit for a wide global audience and focuses on engaging stories of mathematics in action to promote science-based decision making. With a team we are planning a symposium on ‘Mathematics Education and the Socio-Ecological Perspectives on Mathematics Education’. A purpose is to ensure that initiatives and interventions by ICMI are current and responsive to significant questions for mathematics education that arise from outside the field.

The above provides just a flavor of the kind of work undertaken by the office bearers of ICMI: the actual scope is much wider. The first two years as a member of ICMI Executive Committee have been rewarding and challenging. The pandemic posed a challenge, as known ways of working were no longer applicable. However, from within the challenge arose opportunities and rewards. The mathematics education community showed its resilience and flexibility as it adapted to new ways of working together. The digital and technological infrastructure expanded rapidly, opening up access and opportunities in ways unimaginable before the pandemic.

To conclude, working with ICMI immensely broadened my horizon as I became part of a global community dedicated to improvements in mathematics.  Despite all the affordance of virtual connectivity, I am looking forward to meeting the community in person, hopefully at ICME-15!

Best wishes

Anjum

<sup>1. A key purpose of CANP is to create networks in LMIC to enhance mathematics education at all levels. CANP is supported by ICMI, the International Mathematical Union, UNESCO and the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) as well as regional governments and institutions. (https://www.mathunion.org/cdc/scholarships/capacity-networking-project-canp-project-support)
2. UNESCO (2022). Mathematics for Action -supporting science-based decision making. ISBN 978-92-3-100517-6</sup>

Kim Beswick – Convenor of ICME-15 and Will Morony – Chair of the Local Organizing Committee

The first meeting of the International Program Committee (IPC) for ICME-15 was held in Sydney from the 2nd to the 6th of May 2022. Seventeen of the 21 IPC members were able to attend the in-person meeting.

The IPC is responsible for the scientific program of an ICME. For ICME-15, the aspirations for the congress developed by the local organisers were adopted by the IPC and used to frame the purposes and content of the various program elements that were considered. The committee agreed to maintain the general program structure, comprising approximately 12 elements, established by recent ICMEs. Decisions or major progress in relation to the following elements was made:

• Nomination of plenary speakers
• Topics and personnel for two Plenary Panels and five Surveys of current research
• Names of scholars to be invited to give one of more than 60 Invited Lectures
• Identification of Topic Study Groups and people to be invited to be Co-Chairs and members of the teams to organise these. Geographic and gender balance were considered in all considerations of who to invite.

A number of initiatives were agreed upon to strengthen the program. These included:

• A commitment to providing greater clarity in relation to what is expected of those involved in the different program elements by providing guidelines and templates
• A more active role for IPC members who will take on liaison roles to support contributors to program elements beyond the TSGs
• Realignment of some of the TSGs to reduce their number and overlap
• Agreement that initial contributions to TSGs can take the form of a paper or a poster. This is intended to broaden options for TSG participation and to raise the status of posters in the program.
• Clarification of the difference between Workshops and Discussion Groups by orienting workshops towards practical hand-on activities
• Bringing forward calls for proposals for Workshops and Discussion Groups
• Inviting all IPC members to become ICME-15 Ambassadors who will assist with promoting ICME-15 among colleagues and at events in their own country and region.

The IPC confirmed that the focus of the Early Career Researcher Day be primarily on professional development for the participants as well as networking.

It was agreed that ICME-15 would be an in-person event.

The second meeting of the ICME-15 IPC will be from the 6th to the 8th of February 2023, in Sydney.

Call for Nominations for the 2024 ICMI Emma Castelnuovo Award
Deadline for nominations: 30th November 2022

The Emma Castelnuovo Award recognizes outstanding achievements in the practice of mathematics education consistent with ICMI’s principles:

• the development of mathematical education at all levels and;
• the promotion of reflection, collaboration, exchange, and dissemination of ideas on the teaching and learning of mathematics from the primary to the university level.

The Emma Castelnuovo Award honors an individual, or a small team of individuals, for work in the development and implementation of exceptionally excellent and influential work in the practice of mathematics education related to one or more of the following:

• classroom teaching
• curriculum development
• instructional design (of materials or pedagogical models)
• teacher education programs, and/or
• field projects with a demonstrated influence on schools, districts, regions, or countries.

More information can be found on the Emma Castelnuovo Award page on ICMI's website.
 

Call for Nominations for the 2024 Felix Klein and Hans Freudenthal Awards
Deadline for nominations: 30th November 2022

The two awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in mathematics education research:

• Felix Klein Award recognizes lifelong achievement in mathematics education research,
• Hans Freudenthal Award recognizes a major program of research on mathematics education.

Felix Klein Award
The Felix Klein medal is awarded for life-time achievement in mathematics education research. This award acknowledges senior scholars who have made field-defining contributions over their professional careers. Awardees will have had an impact both at the national level, within their own countries, and at the international level. We have valued in the past those candidates who not only have made substantial research contributions, but also have introduced new issues, ideas, perspectives, and critical reflections. Additional considerations have included leadership roles, mentoring, and peer recognition, as well as the actual or potential relationship between the research done and improvement of mathematics education at large, through connections between research and practice.

Hans Freudenthal Award
The Hans Freudenthal medal acknowledges the outstanding contributions of an individual’s theoretically robust and coherent research program, which has had a clear impact on our research community. It honors a scholar who has initiated a new research program and has brought it to maturation over the past 10 years. Freudenthal awardees should also be researchers whose work is ongoing and who can be expected to continue contributing to the field. In brief, the criteria for this award are depth, novelty, sustainability, and impact of the research program.

As of 2024 all three awards will be given quadrennially, during the year that an ICME is held.

More information can be found on the awards page on ICMI's website.
 

We recognize that it’s a lot of work to put together a compelling nomination, but please do!

The two ICMI Awards Committees can only choose recipients from officially submitted nominations for the current round, accompanied by full documentation.

Thank you for considering this call seriously. We look forward to receiving your nominations.

Prof. Em. Helen Forgasz and Prof. Alan Schoenfeld
on behalf of the ICMI Emma Castelnuovo Awards Committee and the ICMI Klein and Freudenthal Awards Committee  

Once upon a Time…  Historical Vignettes from the Archives of ICMI:
About the ICMEs and their logos (I) – The first and second ICMEs 

Bernard R. Hodgson,
Curator of the ICMI Archive

To the memory of Jerry P. Becker (1937-2022)
The last of the ‘Old Hands’

Professor Jerry Page Becker passed away on April 16, 2022.  He was for more than forty years a member of the Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) faculty. Professor Becker has been a long-time friend of ICMI, in addition to his deep involvement in his local and national mathematics education communities—notably in connection with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the U.S. National Commission on Mathematical Instruction (USNC/MI), the USA Subcommission for ICMI. Through his well-known and most valuable “Jerry Becker email distribution list”, he supported and facilitated, during more than twenty-five years, the dissemination of information about mathematics education, both in relation to the USA context and internationally.

He is the sole scholar having attended the first thirteen ICME congresses, from ICME-1 (Lyon, 1969) to ICME-13 (Hamburg, 2016), almost half-a-century later. My former colleague Claude Gaulin, on the occasion of the ICME-7 congress held in 1992 at Université Laval (Québec), coined the expression ‘Vieux routiers’ (‘Old Hands’) to identify those having participated to all the ICMEs. There were twelve of them at ICME-7, who then met for a special dinner (which Jerry Becker described to me, in a recent personal email, as a grand gathering which he remembered vividly): Josette Adda, Shmuel Avital, Jerry P. Becker, Alan W. Bell, John C. Egsgard, Claude Gaulin, Geoffrey Howson, Bernhard H. Neumann, Ruben Schramm, Hilary Shuard, Hans-Georg Steiner and Erich C. Wittmann [1, pp. 446-447].  Claude himself attended all the ICMEs up to ICME-12 (Seoul, 2012). Jerry is the only one present at the first thirteen ICMEs, a feat of which he felt rightly proud. He was the last of the "Old Hands". 

Photo: Jerry Becker, Courtesy Southern Illinois University Carbondale

This vignette is the first in a series proposing selected pieces of information about the International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME), without doubt a component of paramount importance in the program of activities of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). Besides highlighting aspects of interest specific to the different congresses as supported by various archive documents, in particular with respect to the overall structure of each congress program, I also wish in this series to emphasize an interesting visual (and aesthetic) ingredient of the ICMEs: the congress logos that were designed on these occasions.

I will concentrate for the moment on the first two ICMEs held in 1969 and 1972, thus pointing to a vibrant moment in the life of ICMI that witnessed the creation and development of a new strand central to its mission. However, this current vignette is in that connection a bit contradictory with the general series title, as the presentation of the ICME logos gallery will have to wait for a next paper: the tradition of adopting a logo started only with the third ICME in 1976. (It may be reminded in a similar vein that a logo for ICMI itself was adopted only somewhat recently, in 2004—see in that connection my third ICMI Archive vignette [2].)

The background leading to the very first International Congress on Mathematical Education, held in Lyon in August 1969, has already been discussed in an earlier Archive vignette [3], in relation among others to the minimality of the information then conveyed by ICMI to its mother organization, the International Mathematical Union (IMU), concerning the conception and preparation of the congress. At a meeting of the ICMI Executive Committee taking charge in 1967 under the presidency of Hans Freudenthal, jointly with ICMI ‘members-at-large’ and national delegates—these composed ICMI as a Commission, in agreement with the Terms of reference of the time, see [4]—, it was decided, following Freudenthal’s suggestion, to organize an “ICMI Congress” (“Congrès de la C.I.E.M”). Totally devoted to the teaching and learning of mathematics, this ICME, as it came to be known, was to be disjoint from the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) and its education sessions, and to occur in 1969, that is a year prior to the following ICM. The proposed plan was then to build the program on “invited talks and personal communications” and to have the new congress be organized in France [5, p. 245].

A certain fluctuation occurred during 1968 around the preparation of the ICMI congress—partly caused by the “Spring troubles in Paris”, as mentioned by Freudenthal in a note to the ICMI National Subcommissions [6]. It was for a time intended to have the congress in Paris or Versailles at the end of August 1969 [ibid.], but it was finally decided to host it in Lyon, among other reasons because of availability of better facilities at the university [7]. When compared to the ICMEs as we know them today, this first congress can be seen as having a rather peculiar flavor, when one looks at the scientific program proposed to the participants. This is well captured in a passage in the same note from the ICMI President to the ICMI National Subcommissions:
“I discussed the organization once more with Prof. [Maurice] Glaymann [the French delegate to ICMI and main local organizer of the congress]. We think that stress should be laid on invited addresses (about 15) and panel discussions (4 afternoons). Free communications should be allowed but not encouraged. The organizing committee should be empowered to have only printed part of the free communications if there are too many.” [6]
The restrictions proposed by Freudenthal concerning the free communications were possibly influenced by his analysis of the functioning of the ICM, including its education sessions.

Eventually the ICME-1 program proposed a set of 21 one-hour invited lectures, all but one published in the Proceedings of the congress [8]. As reported in the Proceedings of the following ICME, these addresses were “supplemented by a number of short (15-minute) contributions by congress members” [9, p. 4]. A book of 46 ‘conférences libres’ [10], each paper having four pages on average, was thus also published on the occasion of ICME-1. (Among these free communications is one by Jerry Becker. See also his testimony [11] on his participation to ICME-1.)

In his welcome speech at the opening of ICME-1, Freudenthal expressed his satisfaction that such an event was finally happening:
“Nous sommes heureux que nos collègues français aient voulu se charger de cette tâche lourde, mais pleine de promesse. Je vous assure que ce n’était pas une sinécure d’organiser ce congrès.” [12, p. 5]
English translation:
“We are happy that our French colleagues were disposed to take charge of this onerous task, but full of promise. I can assure you that it was not a sinecure to organize the congress.”
The ICME-1 congress gathered 655 participants, coming from 42 different countries (see [13] for details).

At a meeting of ICMI (as a Commission) held in Lyon just before the opening of the ICME-1 congress, the Executive Committee, members-at-large and national delegates decided to modify the rhythm of the ICMEs, as it had been originally planned (see [5]): having these congresses one year prior to the ICMs made these two events too close one to the other, so that a shift of one year was adopted, leading to the two-year pattern between ICMEs and ICMs still the norm today [14, p. 3]. While pointing to the importance of maintaining the education sessions inside the IMU congresses, the discussion during the meeting stressed that having independent congresses specifically devoted to mathematics education was preferable. As recorded in the report, IMU President Henri Cartan, present at the meeting, expressed his explicit support to the continuation of the “ICME experience” [14, p. 2]. A call for bids for the second ICME to take place in 1972 was thus launched at ICME-1.

ICMI received a single invitation for ICME-2, but a solid one, coming from the Royal Society and the British National Committee for mathematics (the official links between UK and IMU), with the support of the British members of the ICMI [15, pp. 198-199] [9, p. 5]. This proposal, with the congress occurring at the University of Exeter, was formally approved by the Commission at its meeting during the 1970 ICM in Nice [15]. 

A peculiarity of the book of Proceedings of the Exeter congress [9] is the care taken by the editor, Geoffrey Howson, to present a global vision of the congress, where it came from and how it aimed to achieve its main goals. In Part I of the book, entitled A congress survey [9, pp. 3-74], many comments can be found not only on the “work” of the ICME-2 congress itself [ibid., pp. 13-72)], but also on the lessons learned from ICME-1 which led the organizers to take some distance from the ‘Lyon model’, in particular with respect to the number of plenary lecturers, and to provide space and time for “effective discussion” and “active participation” [ibid., pp. 5, 8]. As a result, the ICME-2 program contained a mere seven plenary lectures (instead of 21 at ICME-1), the 15-minute talks by congress members were abandoned entirely, a set of thirty-eight working groups was orchestrated, and seventeen countries accepted the invitation of the Program Committee to mount so-called ‘national presentations’. Of course, the administrative and logistics challenge consequent upon such a vision of the congress was daunting [ibid., p. 8]. But for the organizers this was the path to follow, as they were convinced of “the value of workshops in which one could discuss particular developments and even see mathematical learning and teaching taking place,” and of national presentations “at which educators could talk about developments and projects in their own country and in which they might arrange demonstrations of materials and of actual classroom practice.” [ibid., pp. 8-9] This spirit is well summarized by ICMI President Sir James Lighthill, speaking in his Presidential address of the work of the international Program Committee for ICME-2:
“A cardinal principle underlying the committee’s work has been the necessity of viewing mathematical education within the context of the total education of the individual. (…) The next most important principle underlying the architecture of our programme was that on all the different aspects of our subject active discussion must be permitted and encouraged. This congress is above all a congress for discussion, and to this end it has been organised so as to avoid any formal delivery of main lectures outside the periods of the seven plenary sessions.” [ibid., pp. 90-91]

This conception of how the program of an ICME congress might be structured was marking a fundamental change of paradigm, notably when compared to the way the International Congresses of Mathematicians were organized (including its education sessions). It exerted a deep influence on the ICMEs to come. Geoffrey Howson pointed to this coming heritage in the conclusion of his congress survey:
“Writing so soon after the end of the congress, it is difficult to see its work in perspective, but talks with a variety of congress members suggested that the programme committee was right to reduce the number of plenary sessions and to place emphasis on working group discussions and national presentations. Such criticisms as there were, indicated that further progress is likely to come by improving this ‘tripartite’ system rather than by replacing it with yet another system.” [ibid., pp. 72-73]
But Howson also added, concerning the global size of the program and the number of different activities: “The feeling that there was altogether too much happening as the same time was to be expected.” [ibid., p. 73] This perception of an ICME program as being a kind of ‘too large buffet’ is still found nowadays…

For Celia Hoyles—the first recipient of the ICMI Hans Freudenthal Award in 2003—, ICME-2 was her first ICME, where she was a teacher attendee. She presented in [16] her personal recollection of this event and the way it may have paved the way for her long and fruitful career as a leading researcher in mathematical education.

The number of participants at ICME-2 more than doubled from the first congress, and the number of countries represented increased to 76 [13].

Resolutions “embodying matters of great importance to mathematical education” [8, p. 284] are found as appendices to the proceedings of both ICME-1 [ibid.] and ICME-2 [9, pp. 305-306]. Various aspects of the teaching and learning of mathematics are addressed there, from the development of international cooperation and the needs of developing countries, to professional development or topics to be addressed at future ICMEs. An interesting resolution concerning mathematical education as a living academic domain is found among those from the first ICME:
“The theory of mathematical education is becoming a science in its own right, with its own problems both of mathematical and pedagogical content. The new science should be given a place in the mathematical departments of Universities or Research Institutes, with appropriate academic qualifications available.” [8, p. 284]
French version:
“La pédagogie de la mathématique devient de plus en plus une science autonome avec ses problèmes propres de contenu mathématique et d’expérimentation. Cette science nouvelle doit trouver place dans les Départements de Mathématiques des Universités ou des Instituts de Recherche ; ceux qui se qualifient dans cette discipline doivent pouvoir accéder à tous les grades universitaires.” [ibid., p. 285]
Didactics of mathematics was still in its youth then, and ICMI and the ICMEs contributed to its gain of maturity.

Sources
^{[1]  Gaulin, C., Hodgson, B.R., Wheeler, D.H. & Egsgard, J.C. (Eds.) (1994). Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Mathematical Education – Actes du 7e Congrès international sur l’enseignement des mathématiques. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval.
[2]  Hodgson, B.R. (2019). The ICMI logo. (“Once upon a time… Historical vignettes from the Archives of ICMI”) ICMI News (November 2019) pp. 11-12.
[3]  Hodgson, B.R. (2021). The origins of the ICMEs. (“Once upon a time… Historical vignettes from the Archives of ICMI”) ICMI News (July 2021), 5. [www.mathunion.org/icmi/icmi-news-july-2021] (Accessed on May 29, 2022)
[4]  Hodgson, B.R. (2020).  A dilemma related to the ICMI Terms of reference.  (“Once upon a time…  Historical vignettes from the Archives of ICMI”) ICMI News (November 2020) pp. 6-8.  
[5]  Delessert, A. (1967).  Compte rendu de la séance de la C.I.E.M. (Utrecht, 26 août 1967)  L’Enseignement Mathématique 13, pp. 243-246.
[6]  Freudenthal, H. (1968).  Note to the ICMI National Subcommissions, 10 September. IMU Archive/ SF 1 / Ser 14: ICMI 1967-1980.  [Box 14B]
[7]  Freudenthal, H. (1968).  Note to the members of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, 8 October. IMU Archive/ SF 1 / Ser 14: ICMI 1967-1980.  [Box 14B]
[8]  Editorial Board of Educational Studies in Mathematics (Eds.). (1969). Proceedings of the First International Congress on Mathematical Education. (International Commission on Mathematical Education [sic], ICMI). Dordrecht: D. Reidel. [Also in Educational Studies in Mathematics, 2 (1969) 135-418.]
[9]  Howson, A.G. (Ed.) (1973). Developments in mathematical education. Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Mathematical Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[10]  CIEM (1969). 1er Congrès international de l’enseignement mathématique: conférences libres (Lyon août 1969). Commission internationale de l’enseignement mathématique.
[11]  Becker, J.P. (2021). ICME-1 experience. ICMI News (July 2021), 6. [www.mathunion.org/icmi/icmi-news-july-2021] (Accessed on May 29, 2022)
[12]  Freudenthal, H. (1969). Allocution du Premier Congrès international de l’enseignement mathématique (Lyon, 24-31 août 1969). In: [8], pp. 3-6.
[13]  Becker, J.P. (1977). An exploratory analysis of participants in the first, second and third International Congresses on Mathematical Education (ICME). ICMI Bulletin 9 (June 1977), p. 4-11.
[14]  Delessert, A. (1969).  Compte rendu de la séance de la C.I.E.M. (Lyon, 23 août 1969) IMU Archive/ SF 1 / Ser 14: ICMI 1967-1980.  [Box 14B]
[15]  Delessert, A. (1970).  Compte rendu de la séance de la C.I.E.M. (Nice, 5 septembre 1970)  L’Enseignement Mathématique 16, pp. 197-201.
[16]  Hoyles, C. (2020). My first ICME: stimulating a lifetime of inspiration. ICMI News (July 2020) pp. 8-11.}

SEARCHING FOR ICMI DOCUMENTS
The three documents displayed in this vignette now belong to the ICMI Archive, thanks to friends of ICMI—Jeanne Bolon, Jan Draisma and Claude Gaulin—who generously donated them to the Archive.
The Archive collection has increased in recent years, but some important historical documents are still missing. If you have in your personal library documents, promotional items or memorabilia related to the early days of ICMI that you would wish to donate to the IMU/ICMI Archive, please contact the IMU Secretariat Archivist, Birgit Seeliger (archivist@mathunion.org) or myself (Bernard.Hodgson@mat.ulaval.ca) to check if these items are missing from the Archive.
Donators to the Archive, if they so wish, may be rewarded with a copy of the Proceedings of ICME-12 or ICME-13.

Obituary. Dr Jerry Page Becker (Born 1 March, 1937, at North Redwood, Minnesota. Died April 16, 2022, at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, Illinois)

(Adapted and shared with kind permission of AERA SIG087 and Edward A. Silver.)

Throughout his long career, Dr. Jerry Page Becker vigorously pursued his passions for improving mathematics teaching and for engaging actively in the global mathematics education community. After earning his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of Minnesota, Jerry began his career teaching mathematics at the middle school and high school levels. After completing his doctorate in mathematics education at Stanford University, he began his career in higher education, which included faculty appointments at Rutgers University and Northern Illinois University before joining the faculty at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 1979, and he remained an active member of the faculty until his death on 16 April 2022.  
Over the years Jerry taught courses to many students preparing to become teachers, and he taught courses and directed special programs to support practicing mathematics teachers seeking advanced degrees or professional development. For his excellent work with mathematics teachers over his career, Jerry received the Distinguished Life Achievement in Mathematics Award in 2021 from the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  
 
Jerry Becker’s career was the embodiment of global mathematics education. He attended each of the first 13 International Congresses on Mathematics Education, starting in 1969 and then held quadrennially since 1972, and he may have been the only person to have done so!  Jerry served on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics board of directors and as the council’s representative for International Mathematics Education during that time, and he served two terms on the U.S. National Commission on Mathematical Instruction at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. Jerry presented lectures in Germany, Korea, Singapore, China, and Japan and authored many articles published in internationally refereed journals. In coordination with his interests in the teaching of mathematics in East Asian countries, he organized and led delegations of US mathematics teachers on visits to Japan and China. Jerry organized two U.S.-Japan seminars on Mathematical Problem Solving and Computers and another with Japan and China. These seminars featured leading educators from all three countries.
 
Many mathematics educators across the world knew Jerry through his activities and publications, and many more surely knew him because of his valuable professional contribution in creating and maintaining the "Jerry Becker list“ an extensive Listserv that fostered communication globally and distributed information about mathematics education conferences, reports, and so much more. ICMI is very thankful for this service to the global community.
 
Jerry will be remembered not only for his passion for mathematics education but for his integrity, genuine kindness, quiet thoughtfulness, smile, and sense of humor. He was a shining example of how a career could be spent as a productive citizen of the global mathematics education community.

Jerry’s obituary can be accessed at https://www.crainsonline.com/obituaries/Dr-Jerry-P-Becker/#!/Obituary

International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) | 6–14 July 2022
IMU Award Ceremony 2022 | 5 July 2022
19th IMU General Assembly | 3–4 July 2022

***Registration for the virtual ICM 2022 is open! Click here to register***

At meetings held over 24-27 February 2022, the Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) decided that the the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2022 and the 19th IMU General Assembly (GA) would not take place in Saint Petersburg, Russia as originally planned. The decision was communicated to members in an official statement made on 26 February, with a further statement on 27 February clarifying aspects of the decision.

On 11 March 2022, IMU Secretary General Helge Holden announced to IMU Members that the 19th IMU General Assembly will now be held on 3-4 July 2022 in Helsinki, Finland (Scandic Grand Marina & Marina Congress Center), followed by the IMU Award Ceremony 2022 on 5 July 2022 (Aalto University).

It was also confirmed that ICM 2022 will be held as a virtual event over 6-14 July 2022. Registration for the virtual ICM 2022 is now open. Further updates and practical information for the virtual ICM 2022 can be found here.

Latest updates from our ICMI Country Representatives (CR) and Affiliated Organizations

News from the CIEAEM International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Teaching (Cristina Sabena, Secretary of CIEAEM)

Co-option of new members and elections of the Executive of CIEAEM
The co-option of new members and election of the Executive members has been postponed by one year.
The Election of President, Vice-President and Secretary was managed online, with the system “FramaForm”. Here are the results. Gilles Aldon was re-elected as President, Ana Serrado-Bayes was re-elected as Vice-President and Cristina Sabena was re-elected as Secretary.

Fig.1: Results of the elections

Future meetings
CIEAEM 73 is planned as an online meeting, in October 2022.
CIEAEM 74 is planned in July 2023 (location still to be identified, possibly it will be Prague).

CIEAEM Source Book publication
A third book in the collection "CIEAEM Source book" (Springer) is under preparation, with the title “The role of the history of Mathematics in the Teaching/Learning process”. Editors: Sixto Romero, Ana Serradó, Peter Appelbaum, Gilles Aldon. The volume is based on contributions to the CIEAEM conferences 69, 70 and 71. The editing process is still ongoing with the aim of publishing by the end of 2022.

Website
A new website, more suited to the emerging needs of the CIEAEM community, has been issued, using the same previous address https://www.cieaem.org/ .

From Greg Oates

We are excited to announce that the MERGA 44 annual conference will be held in Australia, on the University of Tasmania’s Inveresk Precinct Campus, from the 3rd to 7th July 2022, in Launceston, Tasmania.  We are optimistic that this conference might be our first opportunity to meet physically with our MERGA colleagues in several years. However, we recognize that there remains ongoing uncertainty with respect to travel restrictions, and will thus be planning for a hybrid conference, with online access for those unable to travel, to both attend other presentations and present themselves.  
 
Conference Welcome can be followed on Youtube. 
 
More information can be found on the official conference website (for submission information).

3rd Conference of the Association de Didacticiens des Mathématiques Africains (ADiMA3) in Tunisia at Hammamet - 15 au 20 August 2022

ADiMA is proud to annouce the lauch of the 3rd conference « ADiMA3 » under the auspice of l’Association Tunisienne de Géomatique (ATG) and l’Université de Tunis el Manar (UTM) - 15 - 20 August 2022 Hotel Chich Khan, Hammamet - Tunisia

This 3rd conference is part of the activities of the project that was initiated by an international team of African researchers in mathematics didactics. This research project is intended to contribute to the development of research in didactics of mathematics and science and technology at all levels of education, with a particular concern for the development of new research in these areas and for dialogue with mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, engineers  etc.

The ADiMA executive board and the local organizing committee are currently working to ensure the success of this international scientific event.
We invite you to reserve the dates of August 15 to 20, 2022 for your participation in this symposium and we kindly ask you to disseminate the information widely.
ADiMa is an ICMI Affiliated Regional Organization

The conference is sponsored by the following:

• Associations (ATDM, ATSM, SMT, MIMS, AFTM)
• Institutions universitaires (IPEI El Manar, ENIT, ISEFC, IFT et IBLV)
• Laboratoires de recherche (ECOTIDI, LAMSIN-ENIT)

Theme of the conference: Interdisciplinary approach in the teaching and learning of mathematics: what projects and what issues for Africa?
Sub-themes
    A.    The relationship between mathematics and the concrete, mathematics and other disciplines,
    B.    Conditions for the realization of the interdisciplinary project
    C.    Teacher training and the interdisciplinary project
    D.    Historical, epistemological, philosophical, ideological and cultural dimensions in the interdisciplinary project

The website is in progress. For information please contact: rahim.kouki@ipeiem.utm.tn

9th European Summer University on The History and Epistemology in Mathematics Education
Dates: 18-22 July 2022
Location: University of Salerno – Department of Mathematics - Fisciano (SA), Italy
More information can be found on the official website.

Annual Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, PME45
Dates: July 18 to 23, 2022
Location: Alicante, Spain
The First Announcement can be downloaded from the conference website.
See also the conference page on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where news and reminders are posted.
You may pre-register and make submissions at the ConfTool site.

Seventh International Conference on the History of Mathematics Education (ICHME-7)
Dates: September 19. – 23, 2022
Location: University of Mainz, (Germany)
More information can be found on the conference website.

12th International Mathematical Creativity and Giftedness Conference (MCG12)
The conference will be held for only the second time in the United States, in Las Vegas, Nevada, September 25 – 28, 2022. Considered the premier conference of its type in the world, this conference will have a focus on mathematical expertise and innovation. The opening session on Sunday will feature Karl Schaffer and Erik Stern. With a special focus on thorough, yet playful, integration of dance and mathematics, their presentations at the conference will include opportunities to experience physical, creative problem solving, as well as sharing insights that they have gained through their work together and separately. Keynote speakers include Yeap Ban Har from Singapore, Zalman Usiskin from the United States, and Marianne Nolte from Germany.
Electronic proceedings will be available prior to the conference.
See the conference website for more information.
Contact Linda Sheffield (sheffield@nku.edu) with any questions.

World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions (WFNMC-09), will be held in 19 – 25 July, 2022, in Sofia, Bulgaria
Find out more on the website of WFNMC 09.

ICTMA20 will be held in a virtual format/ Würzburg, Germany.
Find out more on the ICTMA20 website.
Note the revised dates for ICTMA20, delayed due to the worldwide pandemic are 26 - 30 September 2022.

CIBEM – Congresso Iberoamericano de Educação Matemática / Iberoamerican Congress of Mathematics Education (CIBEM)
CIBEM IX will be held in the city of Sao Paolo, scheduled for December 5 to 9, 2022.
IX CIBEM is planned as a space open to all current perspectives, theoretical and conceptual approaches that permeate both empirical work and theoretical reflection of those who practice Mathematics Education.
The expected number of participants is 1200, awaiting the attendance of researchers, professors and undergraduate and graduate students interested in Mathematics Education.
Find out more on the CIBEM website.

Espace Mathématique Francophone (EMF 2022)

Conference Language: French 
The next conference of the Espace Mathématique Francophone (EMF 2022) will take place from Monday 12 to Friday 16 December, 2022 in Cotonou (Bénin) and will be preceded by the youth project from Thursday 8 to Sunday 11 December, 2022.

Depending on the evolution of the pandemic, it is possible that some of the scheduled activities will take place in hybrid mode. The local organizing committee is studying this possibility and is trying to find ways to make it work.
We will keep you informed of the evolution of this organization.

More information can be found on the EMF 2022 website.

CIAEM (Conferencia interamericana de educacion mathematica)/ IACME Inter-American Conference on Mathematics Education
CIAEM/IACME XVI will be held from July 30 -August 4, 2023 in Peru.
More information can be found on the CIAEM website.