Abstract
Russian culture developed under the burden of a series of totalitarian governments, a circumstance that, oddly, supported mathematics education. The Soviet period in particular saw a flowering of mathematical culture, the seeds of which have, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, been carried to the rest of Europe and America. A trickle of ideas, materials—and émigrés—has swollen to a powerful stream. Some of the heaviest influences have occurred in the field of extra-curricular education. We explore some of the ways that Russian and Soviet mathematical culture has fertilized this field. In particular, we look closely at the pivotal role of the professional mathematical communities, both in Russia and in America.
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Notes
The account of the ARML Power Contest is largely from personal recollection. The author was the president of ARML at the time, conceived of the program, and arranged for the funding of the Russian visit.
Much of this paragraph is based on the author's personal communication with Ross.
The writer's own grandfather was educated in an Odessa gymnasia, and S.O. Shatunovsky was one of his teachers. He recalled that Shatunovsky’s pedagogical style was engaging and exacting. “It was easy to get a 1 or 5 [the lowest and highest possible grade],” he told me. “But if you were on the edge you had to really work, to prove to him that you understood the material.” An examination of notebooks he has left me from Shatunovsky’s classes show advanced work in Euclidean geometry and theory of equations, areas that were covered only in the most specialized classes in the English-speaking world.
This information is from the writer's personal communication with Hal Abelson in 1992. Other information in this paragraph is likewise from personal communication with other individuals mentioned.
By 'mathematical circles' we mean here any informal environment where students (or sometimes teachers) meet with a mathematical professional or mathematically sophisticated leader to discuss mathematics outside of a formal school structure.
Information in this paragraph from the author's personal experience.
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Saul, M. Russian influences on American mathematics education after 1991: historical roots of changes in extracurricular programs. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 1605–1616 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01293-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-021-01293-8