A Further Interview with Colin Hannaford: on ‘Mathematics Education for Peace’

7.27.10 - Michael F. Shaughnessy - When you first interviewed me, back in May, I described how I and Professor Hani Khoury, who is the Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Science of Mercer University’s College of Continuing and Professional Studies, were invited to Jordan to address the Arab Thought Forum.

Michael F. Shaughnessy
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

I first interviewed Colin Hannaford in April this year after he had been invited to Amman in Jordan to address the Arab Thought Forum. I had expected interesting answers, not least because in 2008 he had received an Upton Sinclair Award for innovation in education and in 2009 hosted a conference in Windsor Castle entitled ‘Giving Peace a Voice’. What was unexpected, but very gratifying, has been the response of you, our readers, who have kept returning to this interview since it was published in May, making it one of the most popular articles ever published by EducationNews.org.

            I could also not have expected Colin to tell me that he and his colleagues have decided to change the emphasis of their work from promoting better mathematics education and thereby strengthening democracy, for which he had received the Sinclair Award. They decided instead to show how the right approach to mathematics education is also a direct route promoting peace, by beginning in the classroom.

            What follows are his answers to the questions I put to him this week. For those who wish to see it, the first interview is archived at www.educationnews.org/michael-f-shaughnessy/90875.html. ]

1. Colin, you have recently created a new website provocatively entitled ‘Mathematics Education for Peace’.  What led you to do this?

            When you first interviewed me, back in May, I described how I and Professor Hani Khoury, who is the Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Science of Mercer University’s College of Continuing and Professional Studies, were invited to Jordan to address the Arab Thought Forum.

            Dr. Khoury is a remarkable example not only of how courage and determination can overcome misfortune, but also of the power of America’s education system to support such fortitude. Hani was born in Nablus, Palestine, and was sent to the United States in the vain hope of a cure for the spinal atrophy that had already crippled him as a boy. Despite this terrifying obstacle, he has become a university professor of mathematics.

            I, in contrast, am a kind of poor country cousin. My main teaching qualification is school classroom experience: although this has been of a fairly unusual kind. Having first been a soldier, I went to Cambridge University to qualify as a mathematics teacher, and was eventually selected to be a head of mathematics in one of the official schools of the European Union for over twenty-five years. In all, I taught school mathematics for 28 years.

2. What was it about the schools of the European Union that made your experience there unusual?  What did you discover about education in those 28 years?

            The European Schools teach children of most European cultures and many different countries in the major European languages to take a final Baccalaureate examination in up to twelve subjects at university entry level. The advantage that I found there was almost complete freedom in deciding how I should teach. My pupils were of a number of different nationalities and aged from eleven to nineteen. I was required to teach them all in English.

            Partly for an entirely personal reason, but also because of my experience over the first few years, I decided that attempting to teach mathematics mainly via instruction is effective for very few pupils. Unfortunately, it teaches these few also to be selfish. A larger majority is taught to believe that if they want to succeed they must be ready to be dishonest. It not only damages permanently the self-belief of the remaining pupils, but seriously weakens the belief of them all in the intentions and justice of society.

            More serious harm than this is hard to imagine: and all of it is entirely unintentional: and is therefore entirely avoidable. I want to make this point as clearly and loudly as if I could shout it from the rooftops: Trying to teach modern children mathematics via instruction is very, very bad: intellectually it is bad; socially it is bad; morally it is bad. It is also - ask, at random, any child you meet! - amazingly unsuccessful.

            All this would be serious enough if it affected them only in their childhood, but these divisions appear scarcely modified in adulthood. They are arguably the root cause of much modern social dysfunction. I will even suggest that they are the main reason why established democracies are beginning to fail, why people in general are losing confidence in their society, and why this too is entirely avoidable.

            This was my first discovery. It is not particularly special. I have since been told by many people that it perfectly fits their experience. No-one can avoid mathematics education in modern schools. If instruction is used, it can damage everyone.

            My next discovery came more quickly. The cure of this cancer is simply to recall the original reason for teaching those forms of argument that we now call ‘mathematical’, the kinds which take some basic facts as evidence, which connect them together in some obvious way, and which are intended to produce an obvious and testable conclusion.

            These forms of argument were first developed over two thousand years ago in Ancient Greece. Their purpose was not to make mathematics easier to understand - although they did that too - but primarily to encourage ordinary people to participate in democratic government: to give them the confidence to go up against some far more highly educated patricians - or their fancy lawyers, or a trained rhetorician - and, sometimes, even win!

            School and army trained me as a scientist. Science was what I knew. When this ancient connection was explained to me by a classical historian, it was a revelation. It seemed to me at once entirely possible that teaching my pupils to learn mathematics in this way could only be an improvement on instruction.

At least I would not be forcing the majority to assure me repeatedly, “Yes, yes, I understand!” when, manifestly, they did not.

            I found that it is not only entirely possible to teach mathematics like an ancient Athenian - like a Socrates, Archimedes, or Aristotle - but that it is a perfectly delightful way to teach and to learn mathematics. The pupils are invited to examine a fully ‘grown-up’ argument - but one which is culturally entirely neutral - and are required to discuss together not only what it means to them, and then whether they agree with it, but also what its further consequences may be.  

For many children of any age this may be the first time in their lives that they will have been invited to think this maturely.  We can begin before they are ten.

It is fascinating, moving, and also very humbling, virtually to hear the gates of their young minds opening. Any fortunate teachers will know this experience occasionally. It can happen every day.

            Hani Khoury and I were invited to address the Arab Thought Forum primarily to explain this approach. A television recording by Jordan TV made our explanation to the invited audience accessible to others. It was archived by JordanDays.TV.

            But what we learnt in Jordan caused us to re-order our priorities.

3. What is the Arab Thought Forum - and what happened in Jordan, that is, in the Holy Land, to change your priorities?

            The Forum is the creation of HRH Prince El Hassan, uncle of the H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan. In February of this year he reminded an international conference that since 1990 wars in the Middle East have cost at least twelve trillion US dollars. If spent usefully “an average Israeli, Saudi, Jordanian, Palestinian or Lebanese would have enjoyed double the income level … an average Iraqi [would be] four times richer.”

            The Prince concluded: “We have had enough of living on an ad hoc basis - our people are bewildered, anxious, intimidated and apathetic.  … [The Middle East] is not barrels of oil and terrorists. [It is] millions of people who are looking for a better future for their children and their grandchildren.”[1]

            In response to our conversations with the many Jordanians and Palestinians we met on our visit who reflected His Highness’s wish for peace, Hani and I decided to quit pussy-footing around in trying to improve either their mathematics or their democracy.            We decided to aim at a far harder target, and not only in the Middle East but world-wide: to persuade people to stop killing each other, and to begin to do this simply by teaching them to argue – by all means fiercely, but also peaceably – in their mathematics lessons.

            In your first interview, I explained why Arab exclusivity has much to answer for in this respect: but so has Zionist exclusivity, and so has the exclusivity of the many, apparently irreconcilable, divisions of Islam.

            Let us be clear about the aim. To change the way that many millions of adults think and feel is practically impossible. But it is not impossible to help the hundreds of millions of their children and grandchildren to do so who want a better future. They will always far outnumber the fanatics and their followers.

            It is for these millions that we are preparing three new websites. All will have the substantive title www.mathematicseducationforpeac. All are currently empty. We will need help to fill them. We need lots of volunteers!.come.com

4. What would you say is the aim of these websites?

            To teach children everywhere a peaceful alternative to violence.