imagine how good maths education would be if mathematics teachers knew each other as good friends. Going to a Complete Mathematics conference always reminds me of this line by Mark McCourt when he used to open the day. Teaching can be lonely and challenging, especially in a culture where admitting to loving maths can still…
For a brief period during lockdown, millions of parents suddenly found themselves doing something they had never really expected to do: teaching their own children mathematics. Many were highly educated, perfectly numerate and completely comfortable with school maths themselves. Yet a surprisingly common experience was something like: I know how to do this. Why can’t…
Mathematics, music, art, poetry and dance may seem like separate worlds, but beneath the surface they share a common language: patterns.
Anyone who has spent time in a maths classroom will have heard the instruction: “Show your working.” For many students, this feels unnecessary. If they believe they can do the calculation in their head, writing it down seems like extra effort. But writing is one of the most powerful thinking tools humans have ever developed….
The plus sign (+) is one of the simplest, most universal symbols in the world. We see it on calculators, spreadsheets, medicine bottles, social media (“+1”), programming languages, and in every branch of mathematics. It looks trivial — two intersecting lines. But those two lines carry a story that runs through medieval manuscripts, merchant bookkeeping,…
It was Christmas Eve. Bob Cratchit, hunched over his ledger in the dim light of the counting house, had more to contend with than the tyranny of Ebenezer Scrooge. There was another, quieter brutality woven into his working day—one so familiar it barely registered as a problem at all. Non-decimal currency and mixed-base arithmetic. All…
Humans are the only species born unfinished — dependent, fragile, and endlessly teachable. Our helplessness at birth isn’t a flaw; it’s our greatest evolutionary advantage. From toolmaking and fire to language and mathematics, this essay explores how evolution made us the learning species — and why struggle, not comfort, is the forge of true understanding.
“Those who cannot keep time are not lost — they are simply the last people still living in it.” 1. When Time Was Felt, Not Measured Before the timetable, time was alive.It bent, breathed, and followed the body’s pulse.Farmers rose with light, artisans worked until the day grew dim, and people met when everyone arrived…
Complete Mathematics do something truly phenomenal for education. They bring mathematics teachers who live and breathe teaching under one roof. Thanks to this network, my teaching has been utterly transformed in the last 8 years. In 2017, I nervously went to my first ever maths conference, #MathsConf10 knowing no one. I have now attended 20 in-person…
“What other subject is routinely taught without any mention of its history, philosophy, thematic development, aesthetic criteria, and current status? What other subject shuns its primary sources—beautiful works of art by some of the most creative minds in history—in favor of third-rate textbook bastardizations?” — Paul Lockhart, A Mathematician’s Lament That quote sums up exactly…