Richard Dunne
I was saddened by the news of Richard Dunne’s death earlier this year. I met him on a few occasions and I couldn’t fail to be impressed by his passion and intellectual pursuit of some coherence in maths teaching. I also enjoyed his sense of humour which he brought to maths. As I have taught with his principles this year I have been struck by his direct teaching method and the principle of deconstructing a mathemtaics concept before moving forwards.
I recently discovered some papers he wrote that underpinned his approach and I think they are a better foundation for leading maths teaching forward than the raw scheme materials of Maths Makes Sense (OUP). I was struck by his discussion about the Hegemony of Discovery. His review of Marx, Piaget and Vygotsky’s work. His principle was to provide the theoretical constructs before asking children to explore and find out.
It will be interesting to see what will become of Carol Vorderman’s Maths task force now that Richard Dunne is no longer part of her team.
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