The Human Part of the
with Jean-Marie De Koninck
Professor Jean-Marie De Koninck was nine years old when
he decided to become a mathematician. He still remembers
his fifth grade math teacher excitedly writing equations on
the board. Her passion was infectious, and Professor De
Koninck has spent much of his career transmitting that
same passion to the next generation. De Koninck received
the 2016 Margaret Sinclair Memorial Award Recognizing
Innovation and Excellence in Mathematics Education for his
accomplishments.
De Koninck’s award lecture at the Fields Institute began
with the question: “Are we good at math?” He was referring
not to any individuals, but to the human race as a whole.
André Darveau, Jean-Marie De Koninck, Sophie Damours
The answer, he went on to say, is yes. From the day they
are born, babies have an intuitive number sense, but as we
age, many of us lose confidence in our mathematical ability
and consequently, lose interest in mathematics. De Koninck
believes this is at least partially because mathematics
education lacks humanity — we hear about theories and
learn rigorous proofs, but we never see the people and the
hard work that underlies them. His lecture, entitled “The
Human Part of the Equation”, focused on some of these
mathematicians and their stories.
“The role of the teacher has changed,” explains De Koninck
in an interview with me shortly before his lecture. “The
teacher used to be the one with the knowledge and he would
pass that knowledge on to the students, but with the advent
of the internet, knowledge is everywhere, so the role of the
teacher is more as a guide and motivator, a coach.”
The coaching analogy comes easily to De Koninck who
has been coaching swim teams for almost as long as he
has been teaching math. In 1984, De Koninck was growing
tired of seeing his best swimmers leave for US schools
that offered hefty scholarships. He and his team started
fundraising using all the usual methods — selling chocolate
bars, washing cars — but it was a lot of effort for a relatively
small sum of money. One day, he was in his car when
he heard a shocking statistic: 50% of fatal motor vehicle
accidents were due to drinking and driving.
“I couldn’t believe the number was that high,” he says.
“People were leaving the bars at 3 am and they didn’t want to
leave their cars behind. So I thought ‘I have 55 swimmers, I’ll
offer to drive people home in their own cars over Christmas
time.’” He called it “Operation Red Nose.”
Jean-Marie De Koninck and Pierre Dufault at the 1996 Olympic
Games in Atlanta
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