Research On Alfred North Whitehead’s Thought Of Mathematics Education

Alfred North Whitehead was an outstanding British philosopher,educator and founder of process philosophy.At the same time,he was a great mathematician.More than 50 years of teaching experience in Britain and the United States broadened Whitehead’s horizons and made his understanding of mathematics education unique.However,there are not many complete and in-depth studies on Whitehead’s mathematics education thought in academic circles today.The purpose of this paper is to make efforts in this respect in order to look forward to providing reference and inspiration for mathematics education in our country today.The research problems of this paper are divided into three aspects: first,what is the background of Whitehead’s mathematical education thought? Second,what are the main contents of Whitehead’s mathematics education thought? Third,what are the practical implications of Whitehead’s mathematics education thought to our current mathematics education?This article mainly adopts the literature research method and the history research method,based on Whitehead’s educational works,academic papers and his academic speeches and other documents,summarizes Whitehead’s view of mathematics and his thoughts on teaching and learning mathematics,and points out the background and practical enlightenment.The results show that:First,the background of Whitehead’s mathematics education thought mainly includes two aspects: realistic background and ideological background.Among them,the realistic background includes Whitehead’s time and social background,own growth experience,his study experience and thinking on the educational situation in Britain at that time,and the philosophical background mainly comes from his huge and profound process philosophy system.Second,the main contents of Whitehead’s mathematics education thought mainly includes three aspects:Whitehead’s mathematics view,mathematics teaching view and mathematics learning view.In the aspect of mathematics view,Whitehead advocated the model essence view of mathematics,clarified the value idea of mathematics knowledge through the construction of mathematics model,and explored the relation of mathematics and kindness from it.In the view of mathematics teaching,Whitehead believed that the main purpose of mathematics teaching was to cultivate students’ thinking ability;to remind teachers to pay attention to “less” and “fine” in teaching content,but also to avoid inculcating a large number of “lifeless concepts” into students;to advocate the use of proof,pedagogy and imaginative ways to impart knowledge;Whitehead’s exposition of mathematics learning thought was equally unique.He creatively put forward the theory of educational rhythm and circular learning about intellectual development;In addition,in the principle of mathematics learning,Whitehead also pointed out that students should follow the principle of need priority,focus principle and access to learning principles.The enlightenment of Whitehead’s mathematics education thought to the present mathematics education in our country mainly includes three aspects: first,mathematics education should grasp the true meaning and enhance the educational value of mathematics subject;Second,mathematics education should follow the teaching link of rhythm organization rhythm;Third,mathematics education should activate knowledge to realize deep learning of mathematics knowledge.