Guest post by Carmen Bruni, Associate Professor Teaching Stream, Computer Science (cbruni@uwaterloo.ca)
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In 2025, the UBC's mathematics building (originally an arts building) turned 100. It was meant to be a "temporary building lasting 40 years until government funding could replace it and made with stucco finishing".
... we're still waiting for that funding.
In any case a building turning 60 years older than it was scheduled to be seems as good a reason as any to hold a conference. It was great to return to UBC and see former graduate student colleagues and many faculty and friends from the west coast.
I was invited to give a talk at an education session at this birthday part of sorts. We were invited to speak about the past, present and future of mathematics education. I dusted off my bookshelf and came across a book I thought would be perfect to discuss - The Ontario Public School Arithmetic. This book has now outlived its copyright being 115 years old and since I couldn't find a copy online, I've taken it upon myself to do the mathematical community a service and scan it myself.ÌýYou can find a copy Ìýor an attempted OCR copy Ìýand for good measure I've put it on the . If anyone can provide better expertise on how to make the scan better please let me know.
From the front cover alone we notice something interesting. The book itself, being a small 19cm x 12cm x 1.25cm book, cost students a grand total of 10 cents. The Bank of Canada Inflation calculator only goes back to 1914 but from that time forward, 10 cents amounted to $2.73. You'd be hard pressed to find a book that on a cost per page basis was 10 cents...
It is hard to know what this book was for. There was no foreword and no indication for what grade levels this book was designated to be delivered to. Based on the topics, I surmise that it could have been for the entirety of a student's public school education but I cannot confirm this. If anyone has more information please let me know.
On the discussion of topics, the book contains many standard topics including Roman numerals, basic arithmetic, weights, measures and compound denominate numbers, fractions, "practical measurements", factors, multiples, decimals and vulgar fractions, the metric system (which wasn't adopted yet), square roots, mensuration and commercial arithmetic.
It was great to see what mathematics students over 100 years ago were trying to grapple with. If nothing else; it was great to learn that two hogsheads equals a butt!
Other education topics at the event:
Fok-Shuen Leung: Discussed what a future of mathematics looks like in a day where everyone seemingly "has a calculator in their pocket!" An interesting take on what we might want to focus our teaching on in a day when large-scale computations will become easier and easier to perform.
Shawn Desaulniers: Still doing great work on the west coast getting the next generation interested in mathematics by doing math circle type events and giving students fun problems and puzzles to solve.
Vanessa Radzimski: Discussed some of the many fears and phobias she encounters in future teachers and is doing a fantastic job trying to help them to overcome those fears and feel prepared to teach the next generation of students.
Pam Sargent and Cindy Blois: They discussed their ongoing project of incorporating far more group work and collaboration into their year-long business calculus course.
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