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Summary
In the previous chapter we described how mathematics established itself within the curriculum of the older endowed schools and how the AIGT came to be established. Meanwhile, state intervention in education had sought to ensure that a uniform brand of arithmetic was taught in those elementary schools which received public money, and the State had also, somewhat unwillingly, become involved in a form of secondary education. During the period which we now describe, secondary education, too, was to be accepted as a state responsibility and mathematics teaching within that sector was to be reformed. Moreover, not only was the practice of mathematics education to be reviewed, but considerable attention was also to be directed at the study of mathematics education. Whereas, for example, J. M. Wilson was largely happy to practise as a mathematics teacher, Godfrey and his contemporaries, such as Branford, Carson and Nunn, attempted to found a discipline of mathematics education.
SCHOOL AND RAWDON LEVETT
Many, if not all, mathematicians are greatly indebted to their first mathematics teacher and this was certainly true of Charles Godfrey. His master at King Edward's School, Birmingham, was Rawdon Levett, one of the founder members of the AIGT (pp. 134f above). Levett, later described as ‘probably the best schoolmaster I ever knew’ (1), was clearly the kind of teacher profoundly to influence a young pupil. He was a Cambridge mathematician {2} who had come to King Edward's in 1869 after four years teaching at Rossall School.
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- A History of Mathematics Education in England , pp. 141 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982