image: Kathy Clark is an assistant professor of mathematics education at Florida State University. view more
Credit: FSU Photo Lab
When it comes to math, Kathy Clark can get pretty emotional.
An assistant professor of mathematics education at the Florida State University College of Education, Clark feels passionate about teaching the subject well. She tears up over a famous mathematician whose life ended wretchedly in a mental institution. Doing math and sharing its wonders elate her. And she gets annoyed with false stereotypes about the field. To wit: The great thing about math is its lack of ambiguity — a solution to a problem is either right or wrong.
"That is so not the attribute of math that is the most thrilling part," Clark huffed. "It's not even right!"
That is one misconception Clark plans to tackle with a new grant from the Tensor Foundation, working with the Mathematical Association of America. The groups doled out about $72,000 to colleges and universities nationwide to encourage girls and women to study math. Clark plans to use her portion to give math a human face — specifically, a face without whiskers.
Clark's project, "History Repeats Itself: Women in the History of Mathematics for Women Learning Mathematics," will be conducted through the Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, housed at Florida State's Learning Systems Institute. Although the amount of Clark's grant is not big — $5,135 — its impact on the girls and women who will participate will be, she said.
A former high-school math teacher who chalked up 14 years in the classroom, Clark said the subject is too often taught as a set of skills to be mastered through repetition. That approach, she said, lacks coherence, context and a connection to real people or history.
In other words, it can make math dull, dry and cold.
"And we wonder why kids can't solve for x when they've seen you do it 30 times in a row," Clark said.
For Clark, mathematics is less about numbers than about stories. Bringing theorems and equations back into a human context, she says, restores to them their full meaning, with the potential to help students learn and understand better.
About 25 girls and women from middle school through college will participate in the project, which will take place in the spring of 2011. (Clark is already identifying funding sources to extend the project). During eight sessions, the students will learn about four women's contributions to mathematics: Mary Everest Boole, Sophie Germain, Grace Chisholm Young and a certain Florence Nightingale.
Well known for her work as a nurse, Nightingale is less recognized for her contributions to math. Yet they had a profound impact: Her statistical studies of Crimean War casualties showed that soldiers were dying more frequently from preventable complications caused by unsanitary hospital conditions than from the actual wounds themselves. Her mathematical analysis led to advances that saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
The participants in Clark's project will read and discuss original works by these mathematicians. "The point is to look at math as this living, breathing, evolving entity, rather than a set of problems to do," she said.
Most students don't realize that our knowledge about math didn't just plop out of the sky. The subject's history is marked by struggles and victories, tragedies and failures. Did you know, Clark asked, that for much of recorded history the "experts" dismissed the very idea of negative numbers? It took some 1,800 years for the entire field to recognize them as solutions to equations.
"See," she said, pointing to her bare arm. "I get goose bumps!"