Enrico Magenes and the Teaching of Mathematics

Abstract

It rarely happens that a mathematician of international value, as it was the case for Enrico Magenes, devotes a large part of his time and his interest to Mathematics Education. That is exactly what Enrico Magenes did, and not occasionally, but systematically. First of all, his commitment was at university level with the courses of Complementary Mathematics, specifically devoted to the education of future teachers, assigning graduation thesis on educational topics, and with an active participation in order to give birth to a Mathematics Education Seminar in the School of Sciences. In second place, Magenes spent his time for the Teaching of Mathematics in middle and high schools, working along three different directions: he put forth specific proposals about the teaching programs; during his term as president of the Italian Mathematical Union, he founded the Research Units for Mathematics Education, which initiated the research activity on this topic in Italy; he committed himself directly in the Project “Mathematics as a Discovery,” writing the Mathematical Analysis volume with the late Giovanni Prodi.