Howard Fehr

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Howard Franklin Fehr (born December 4, 1901 in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) , † May 6, 1982 in Manhattan ) was an American math teacher.

Life

After working in a steel mill, Fehr studied at Lehigh University (bachelor and master degrees) and at Columbia University , where he received his doctorate in 1940 (A Study of the Number Concept of Secondary School Mathematics). He was then first a teacher in public schools, at Montclair State College in New Jersey and taught mathematics education at Columbia University Teachers College from 1948. From 1949 he was head of the mathematics education department and in 1967 he retired. He remained active as head of the SSMCIS program from 1965 to 1973.

He was one of the main exponents of New Mathematics in the USA, which received a lot of attention in the context of the Sputnik shock . In 1961 his report New Thinking in School Mathematics was published for UNESCO and OECD . In the USA this led to the Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum Improvement Study (SSMCIS) program in high schools , in which from the late 1960s to the 1970s overarching fundamental concepts and structures of mathematics (such as quantities, relations, figures, groups, bodies, Rings, vector spaces). The program suffered from a lack of central funding in the USA, a skeptical public interested primarily in the results of the entrance exams for colleges, and a counter-movement that began in the mid-1970s ( led by Morris Kline , among others ).

He also traveled around the world for Unesco to disseminate these ideas of educational reform in mathematics (Latin America, Arab countries, Greece, Spain, India). He was the author and editor of many math textbooks that were also used outside the United States (for example, a Spanish translation of his algebra textbook).

He was married and had a son and two daughters.

Fonts

  • Secondary mathematics; a functional approach for teachers, Boston: Heath 1951
  • with Virgil S. Mallory: Senior mathematics for high schools, Chicago: Sanborn 1955
  • Algebra, Boston: Heath 1955
  • Teaching High School Mathematics, National Education Association, 1955
  • with Walter H. Carnahan: Geometry, Boston: Heath 1961
  • with Max A. Sobel: Mathematics for Everyone, New York: Pocket Books 1963
  • Number patterns make sense, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1965
  • with Thomas J. Hill: Contemporary mathematics for elementary teachers, Boston: Heath 1966
  • An introduction to sets, probability and hypothesis testing, Boston: Heath 1964
  • with Jo McKeeby Phillips: Teaching modern mathematics in the elementary school, 1967, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley 1972

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Howard Fehr in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used
  2. ^ Fehr, The Secondary School Mathematics Curriculum Improvement Study: A Unified Mathematics Program, The Mathematics Teacher, Volume 67, 1974, pp. 25-33
  3. ↑ In 1962 his report was published: Mathematical education in the Americas, 1st Interamerican Conference on Mathematics Education, Bogota 1961, New York, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1962.
personal data
SURNAME Fehr, Howard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fehr, Howard Franklin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American math educator
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1982
Place of death Manhattan