[ICMI-News] ICMI NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2014

[technician at mathunion.org]

ICMI NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2014





 




Editors:           Abraham Arcavi (ICMI Secretary General)
                   Cheryl E. Praeger (ICMI Vice President)




Email addresses:   ICMI_Secretary-General at mathunion.org
                   Cheryl.praeger at uwa.edu.au




Graphic Design:    Lena Koch (ICMI Administrator) 





November 1, 2014




Contents




1. Editorial – From the desk of Zahra Gooya, Member-at-Large, ICMI Executive Committee. 
2. Welcoming the new IMU Executive Committee. 
3. Michèle Artigue awarded the Luis Santaló Medal 
4. Nomination of the next ICMI Executive Committee 
5. CANP Tanzania
6. Klein Project Update 
7. Updates on ICMI Studies 
8. XIV CIAEM 2015 
9. Espaço Matemático em Lingua Portuguesa created 
10. Emma Castelnuovo Award – Reminder 
11. Have you read? 





1. MARYAM MIRZAKHANI BROKE THE SPELL AND BECAME THE FIRST
FEMALE FIELD MEDALIST. EDITORIAL - FROM THE DESK OF ZAHRA
GOOYA, MEMBER-AT-LARGE, ICMI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE




At the ICM- 2014 in Seoul, for the first time since
the establishment of the Field Medal, a female
mathematician; Maryam Mirzakhani with three
other young mathematicians (under 40), won this
Medal.
Ralph Cohen, a professor of mathematics and the
senior associate dean for the natural sciences in
Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences,
described Professor Mirzakhani’s work in
mathematics as "an outstanding example of
curiosity-driven research". Despite the potential
applications of her work, Mirzakhani enjoys pure
mathematics because of the elegance and longevity
of the questions she studies (Stanford Report,
August 12, 2014.)
It is exciting to see a normal human being whom I
know become a first class world star! So, I would
like to take this opportunity to say a few words
about the Maryam who I met and the Maryam that
I see today. When in 1997, I invited Miss
Mirzakhani - a young undergraduate student of
mathematics at Sharif University of Technology -
to deliver a talk for more than 1000 high school
students at the 2nd gathering of “Mathematics
Blossoms” hosted by Shahid Beheshti University in
Iran, the audience asked her to talk about the
secret recipe for her success in winning two gold
medal at the International Mathematics Olympiad
(IMO). She talked about her experience as follows:




It is only in grappling with the process of solving
problems that we become interested in mathematics
and even if we don’t arrive at the solution, we find
other interesting things. Unless we engage with the
solution process, we won’t get close to mathematics
and we see it as unreachable.




Amazingly, after 17 years, when she became the
first female to win the Fields Medal, in replying to
a reporter who asked about her approach to
developing new proofs, the spirit of her response
was the same: I don't have any particular recipe . . . it
is the reason why doing research is challenging as well
as attractive. It is like being lost in a jungle and trying
to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come
up with some new tricks, and with some luck you
might find a way out" (Stanford Report, August 12,
2014.)
Maryam Mirzakhani; the deep, humble and
humane undergraduate student of the Sharif
Institute of Technology in Tehran, who said she
loves reading story books, still enjoys this and now
she reads story books for her little daughter!
Maryam has broken various spells and myths and
I refer to just three of them.




1. Maryam lived and grew up in Iran, a place
where, for some people in the world, it is difficult
even to imagine that girls could go to school and
climb the ladder! This is one myth and Maryam
has broken it.




2. This phenomenal event has surely dispelled the
suggestion that women are inferior to men when it
comes to mathematics.




3. The social image of mathematics as being
inaccessible and of mathematicians residing in
their ivory tower and being unable to
communicate with ordinary people, is still strong.
Many believe that mathematicians do not have
broad interests, and thus are mainly isolated and
rarely have friends except their colleagues in the
same field. Maryam challenged this myth as well,
since most of her classmates relied on her
friendship and devotion, as well as her sweet and
gentle personality.




Maryam reads stories, goes hiking and cycling,
and takes part in other sports. She likes poetry,
enjoys travelling, and is a superb mom! Changing
the image of the world about mathematics was one
of the three main goals of the World Mathematics
Year 2000 initiated by UNESCO, and Maryam has
contributed immensely to this goal.
Last but not least, I feel that when Maryam
survived a horrible accident in 1997 that claimed
the lives of seven young mathematics students,
God had a plan for her! She had to survive to
become a torchbearer for female mathematicians
world-wide!










2. WELCOMING THE NEW IMU EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE




The Executive Committee of ICMI warmly
welcomes the new Executive Committee of the
IMU, recently elected for the period 2015-2018,
at the ICM in Seoul:
Shigefumi Mori, President
Helge Holden, Secretary General
Alicia Dickenstein Vice-president
Vaughan Jones Vice-president
Members-at-large
Benedict H. Gross, Hyungju Park, Christiane
Rousseau, Vasudevan Srinivas, John Toland,
Wendelin Werner.




The ICMI community would express its
gratitude to the outgoing committee, and
especially to President Ingrid Daubechies and to
Secretary Martin Grötschel for their ongoing
support throughout their tenure. We are
confident that the close relationships between
IMU and ICMI will go on with the new
Executive Committee.
The new CDC members can be found here:
http://www.mathunion.org/cdc/about-cdc/members-cdc/
ICMI EC member Angel Ruiz (Costa Rica)
continues as the CDC member appointed by the
ICMI Executive Committee.










3. MICHÈLE ARTIGUE AWARDED THE LUIS SANTALÓ MEDAL




The Executive Committee of the Inter-American
Committee on Mathematics Education
(http://ciaem-iacme.org) announced its decision
to award the Luis Santaló Medal to the French
Researcher and Educator, Michèle Artigue, past
President of ICMI.
This medal is the most important international
recognition awarded by IACME. It carries the
name of Luis Santaló, who was a Spanish-
Argentinian mathematician and educator,
President of IACME, and who contributed
significantly to the teaching and learning of
Mathematics in Latin America. It is presented
every four years to someone who has provided
considerable support to the actions of IACME and
to Mathematics Education in the Americas. The
medal will be presented on May 3, 2015 during the
inaugural ceremonies of IACME XIV
(http://xiv.ciaem-iacme.org) in the city of Tuxtla
Gutiérrez, Chiapas (México). On that occasion
Michèle will give the opening plenary address.










4. NOMINATION OF THE NEXT ICMI EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE




According to ICMI’s regulations, the process for
the nomination of the next Executive Committee
(which will take office on January 1st. 2017)
should start about two years before the next ICMI
General Assembly convenes in Hamburg,
Germany, in July 2016 (immediately before the
opening of the ICME 13) to elect the next EC. The
task of the Nomination Committee is to propose
the candidates.
ICMI reiterates its invitation to select, in
consultation with the Adhering Organisations of
the member countries, one candidate for the
Nomination Committee. Submission of
candidacies should be sent to the ICMI Secretary
General before December 1st, 2014. The members
will be randomly selected from the whole pool of
candidates submitted by the country
representatives. For details about the process of
formation of the Nomination Committee and its
functioning, please see:
http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/icmi/executive-committee/recent-and-forthcoming-elections/










5. CANP TANZANIA




CANP (Capacity and Network Project) is a joint
project of the International Mathematical Union
(IMU) and ICMI, in conjunction with UNESCO
and the International Congress of Industrial and
Applied Mathematics (ICIAM). CANP aims to
enhance mathematics education at all levels in
developing countries by developing the
educational capacity of those responsible for
mathematics teachers, and by creating sustained
and effective regional networks of teachers,
mathematics educators and mathematicians, also
linking them to international support. For more
details about the CANP Project please see the
ICMI Website (Outreach to Developing Countries)
Three CANPs were already held in the past, and
recently CANP 4 took place in Tanzania, with 80
participants from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and
Tanzania and an international International
Program Committee (IPC). It was funded by the
International Council for Science (ICSU),
UNESCO, ICMI, Aga Khan University and IMUCDC.
Anjum Halai and the staff of Aga Khan
University in Dar es Salaam were in charge of the
organisation. The event consisted of public and
plenary lectures, broadcast in different parts of the
country, regional presentations, panels and
workshops. The meeting had a wide appeal in the
media: many articles about it were published in
the National newspapers, and some interviews of
participants were broadcast on TV.
The ICMI EC was represented by its President,
Ferdinando Arzarello. He reported that the
contributions of the invited people (outstanding
Mathematicians and Mathematics Educators from
Africa and from the wider IMU-ICMI international
community) were excellent and the involvement of
participants was very high during the whole
period. Some special sessions concerned the state
of mathematics teaching in the four countries: they
were made possible by intense preparation before
the meeting and the resulting papers will
constitute the core of a forthcoming book about
mathematics education in Eastern Africa. The
enthusiastic participation resulted in a resolution
to constitute a regional ICMI conference for East
Africa.
http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/activities/outreach-to-developing-countries/canp-project-2014-east-africa/










6. KLEIN PROJECT UPDATES




Readers of the ICMI Newsletter will already be familiar with the Klein Project--an ICMI/IMU project to
produce easily readable materials for secondary teachers of senior classes on contemporary mathematics.
Please see http://blog.kleinproject.org or just Google "Klein Blog".
Recently we have added many translations of the Vignettes--they are nearly all available in Arabic,
English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, with some available in Portuguese and Mandarin. We
have also been posting Book and Site of the month.
We are now in the process of converting this site from a Blog into a Website with multiple indexes and
new features.
We welcome feedback on what teachers would like to have on this website--remembering that the main
aim of the Klein Project is mathematics for teachers, not for students.
Please contact Bill Barton b.barton at auckland.ac.nz with your comments.










7. UPDATES ON ICMI STUDIES




ICMI studies 21 (Mathematics Education and Language Diversity) and 22 (Task Design) are in the last
stages of production and will appear in print in 2015. ICMI Study 23 on Primary Mathematics Study on
Whole Numbers is ongoing.
The Study Conference will convene in Macau, June 3-7, 2015. For more details, please see:
http://www.umac.mo/fed/ICMI23/










8. XIV CIAEM 2015




The 14th Interamerican Conference on
Mathematics Education (Conferencia
Interamericana de Educación Matemática,
CIAEM) will take place in Tuxtla Gutierrez,
Chiapas, Mexico, May 3-7, 2015.
CIA EM
http://www.ciaemiacme.org/?q=en/principal
is affiliated with ICMI and its conferences
attract participants from the Americas with
special guests from all over the world.




For more details about the event please see http://xiv.ciaem-iacme.org/index.php/xiv_ciaem/xiv_ciaem










9. ESPAÇO MATEMÁTICO EM LINGUA PORTUGUESA CREATED




In July 2014 a new Regional Group of ICMI, the EMeLP (Espaço Matemático em Lingua Portuguesa -
Mathematics Space in Portuguese) was created by three ICMI representatives from Portuguese speaking
countries, namely Brazil, Portugal and Mozambique. The EMeLP represents significant progress in
creating space for collaboration among countries bonded by their affinity with Portuguese language. The
concept of EMeLP was first conceived in 2009 through “Projeto Klein de Matemática em português”
affiliated to the ICMI- IMU project, The Klein Project for the 21st century, in which researchers from
Brazil and Portugal have been contributing to further Mathematics Education.
An International Congress of EMeLP, CIEMeLP, is already being planned to be held in Coimbra,
Portugal, in October 2015. ICMI EC congratulates the three representatives and expresses wishes that
other Portuguese speaking countries appoint representatives to join the EMeLP and collaborate to
strengthen the activities of this new group. In case of questions, please contact: ICMI EC member Yuriko
Yamamoto Baldin from Brazil: yuriko.baldin at uol.com.br










10. EMMA CASTELNUOVO AWARD - REMINDER




The Executive Committee of ICMI created a third
award in order to celebrate outstanding
achievements in the practice of mathematics
education. The new award will be named after
Emma Castelnuovo, an Italian mathematics educator
born in 1913, in celebration of her 100th birthday and
honoring her pioneer work.
The Emma Castelnuovo Award seeks to
recognize and to encourage efforts, ideas and
their successful implementation in the field, as
well as to showcase models and exemplars of
inspirational practices to learn from.
The deadline for receiving nominations is
December 15, 2014.




For more details, see
http://www.mathunion.org/icmi/activities/awards/call-for-proposals-for-the-first-emma-castelnuovo-award/










11. HAVE YOU READ?




The Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education is a 672
page comprehensive reference text, covering every
topic in the field with entries ranging from short
descriptions to longer pieces where the topic
warrants more elaboration. The 163 entries, written
by 177 international experts, provide access to
theories and to research in the area and refer to the
leading publications for further reading. The
Encyclopedia is aimed at graduate students,
researchers, curriculum developers, policy makers,
and people interested in mathematics education.
Editor-in- Chief: Steve Lerman,
Editorial Board: Michele Artigue, Ruhama Even,
Melony Graven, Eva Jablonka, Robyn Jorgensen,
Yoshinori Shimizu, Bharath Sriraman.




For more details, see:
http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/mathematics+education/book/978-94-007-4977-1










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