Should math history be incorporated in our teaching?

Should math history be incorporated in our teaching? (before reading)

I can think of one useful situation to tell the history of mathematics, and that 

reason is to ponder on the question of "Why do we do math?" I find that understanding

why Math was important in throughout our history is justification for why we spend the

10 or more years learning it. It's to answer why we value math in society, and our 

history has evidence. I'm not sure to what depth and how exactly, but I do think 

 there is some place for math history in the classroom.

 

On the objections:

"(O4) Many students dislike history and by implication will dislike history of mathematics, 

or find it no less boring than mathematics."

This is the strongest objection that I found convincing, due to my experience. 

Most of my time spent volunteering in a classroom was dealing with students who already 

did not like math, so I have a hard time thinking that doing a historical study would be 

engaging to them. 

 

"(O3) Students may have an erratic sense of the past which makes historical

contextualisation of mathematics impossible without their having had a broader

education in general history (e.g. Fauvel 1991,4)." 

 

I know that when I was young, historical facts did not have a lot of significance, because

 they were bits of information without having the full story. Even world changing events 

like the Industrial Revolution would just be another fact, and something I did not reflect so

 hard on and have much meaning with. As I grew up more, and through experiences of 

becoming an adult, it's easier to take appreciation from these historical facts. I am scared 

that without much historical knowledge and reasons to empathize, they don't feel the 

stakes to learn it.

3) Any changes in your ideas after having read this piece.

I actually felt that the objections were stronger than the supporting points, 

which I mostly took to be giving students a "fuller picture" of what they are studying, which

is something I initially felt. 

 

Most of my experience with the students I've seen, I felt that they were struggling in 

some manner and I feel like the history of math would not be so helpful towards them 

since they are having problems staying engaged with the material they have to know. 

However, I understand that I am limited in the understanding and experience, and there

 are lots of students I have not seen yet, and will keep an open mind for any opportunities 

that I see where I think the history would be helpful in their understanding and 

motivations of learning the math, and will refer to some of the methods suggested in the

 last page, especially games (really great for probability, also fun, also gets you to think).

EDIT::

 

Having done some studying of math history of my own at this point of the year, I have some 

new perspectives on this topic. I think that learning the history can teach about the math itself.

For example, when we are studying different bases, it seems much more useful to draw back

to examples of history where they used a different base system as us. Babylonian societies 

primarily using base 60 is an excellent example because it teaches the student about base 60

and also is evidence that its a natural way to think as it draws back to how people thought back

then. This as opposed to examples and computations, which feels disconnected on its own.

 

I think the history also informs that math is a cultural-human endeavor, and now having done 

math history, I can appreciate more that math is a natural form of expression built on by

previous humans facing the same problems. Having seen a glimpse of Babylonian, Egyptian,

Roman math, it is easier to see mathematics' relation to us, as it gives us a language

to talk about the common problems we face as people, regardless of time and place.