Caleb Gattegno (1911-1988)
Caleb Gattegno was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1911.
Degrees:
1. Licencié ès Sciences (Bachelor of Science) in Physics and Chemistry, 1931 University of Marseille.
2. Diplôme d'Etudes Supérieurs de Mathématiques, 1936.
3. Doctorate in mathematics at the University of Basel: Les cas essentiellement géodésiques des équations de Hamilton-Jacobi intégrables par séparation des variables, 1937.
4. Master of Arts in Education at the University of London: The Mathematical Definition of Education, 1948.
5. Docteur ès Lettres (Philosophy) at the University of Lille, 1952.
Teaching:
From 1932 to 1936, Gattegno was a Mathematics teacher at the Lycée Français in Alexandria (Mission Laïque Française)
Founder and Director of the Centre d'Etudes Supérieures Scientifiques et Technique in Cairo, 1938-45
"Visiting Mathematics Professor" at the University of Liverpool, 1945-46.
Mathematics teacher and teacher trainer for grammar schools in the London area and at the University of London, 1946-57.
Founder of the International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Education (CIEAEM) in 1951; he left in 1960.
In 1952 he founded The Association for Teaching Aids in Mathematics (ATAM), which became The Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM), and its journal Mathematics Teaching which is published 4 times a year and has 4000 members.
In 1952 he also participated in the founding of the Société Belge des Professeurs de Mathématique d'expression française and its journal Mathematica et Paedagogia
Member of a United Nations (Technical Assistance) mission to Ethiopia with the object of finding a solution to the problem of illiteracy, 1957-58.
Founder of Educational Solutions in 1968 in New York where he lived until his death in 1988.
Other:
From 1947 until his death, he ran seminars for international groups, mainly in Europe, in North and South America and in Japan
Founder of The Cuisenaire Company , 1954; director until 1986. Production of the Cuisenaire materials and the accompanying manuals.
Company extended to include publishing in 1960 with branches in 7 countries. 70 authors including Caleb Gattegno were published between 1960 and 1982.
Mathematics at Your Fingertips 1961, film.
From 1971 until his death, he published the Educational Solutions Newsletter five times a year
He is the author of pedagogical works, books on psychology and books of reflection on different subjects (death, health, love, economics)
Between 1944 and 1988 he published almost 120 books and 500 articles in scientific and other journals in a dozen countries. See the bibliography of his works
He created pedagogical materials for the teaching of reading (Words in Color, Infused Reading), foreign languages (Silent Way) and mathematics (Numbers in Color, geoboards)
He died in Paris in 1988 two weeks after having run the seminar Le mystère de la communication near Grenoble
, the Egyptian born mathematician and educator.
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