Math Educator and Author W.W. Sawyer Dies at 97

June 5, 2008

Mathematician and author Walter Warwick Sawyer, who was born in Great Britain in 1911 and made major contributions to mathematical education, died earlier this year at the age of 97.

Sawyer taught mathematics in Britain, Africa, and Canada. His love of mathematics, combined with his interest in the application of mathematics to industry, led to his first book, Mathematician's Delight, which was published in 1943 and has remained in print since. His goal in writing the book was to try to "dispel the fear of mathematics."

Sawyer was a longtime critic of the status quo in mathematics instruction. Education, he said, "consists in co-operating with what is already inside a child's mind." The best way to learn geometry, for example, "is to follow the road which the human race originally followed: Do things, make things, notice things, arrange things, and only then reason about things," Sawyer said.

Sawyer argued that teachers, therefore, should work with and encourage the development of students' minds and inherent talent. "Many people regard mathematicians as a race apart, possessed of almost supernatural powers," he wrote. "While this is very flattering for successful mathematicians, it is very bad for those who, for one reason or another, are attempting to learn the subject."

In his book A Concrete Approach to Abstract Algebra (1959), Sawyer explained how practical mathematical examples are not only essential to good mathematics courses but also serve as a better approach than simply reciting "every axiom." Students might then see how mathematics applies to other aspects of life.

Sawyer also wrote Vision in Elementary Mathematics (1964); A Path to Modern Mathematics (1966); The Search for Pattern (1970); An Engineering Approach to Linear Algebra (1972); and A First Look at Numerical Functional Analysis (1978).

Source: Plus Magazine, May 15, 2008.