Integrating History of Mathematics into the Classroom: Was Aristotle Wrong?

Abstract

This article describes a part of a large scale study which helped to gain understanding of the high school mathematicsteachers' perceptions related to the integration of history of mathematics into instruction. There is obvious lack ofcorrespondence between general perception about possible benefits of students learning the history of mathematics andteachers’ perceptions of the integration of the history of mathematics in curriculum. A total of 367 mathematicsteachers from one of the New England states, USA, participated in an on-line comprehensive survey, which wasdesigned by the researchers.We report on several factors that affect teachers' decision whether include history of mathematics into curriculum,offer some recommendations for teacher professional development and suggestions for further research.