“Was Pythagorus Chinese” Reflections

I’ve honestly never thought about this before! I’ve always taken for granted that Pythagorus was Greek, especially since the graphics in classroom posters always depicted him as such, and this reflects the strong Western-Eurocentric influence on our learning. 

I feel the need to refresh and reconstruct my understanding of so many mathematical ideas that have been presented in my classes over the years. I had no idea that in other parts of the world, even today, that the Pythagorean Theorem is known as the Gougu Rule. And, I definitely did not know that Pascal's Triangle, which was invented in 11th century by mathematician Jia Xian, was re-invented by Blaise Pascal in the 17th century, and that's the version that we are taught today. (This brings me back to another class, where we were shown that Avicenna and Averroes, two polymaths mostly recognized for their contributions to philosophy, are actually Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, respectively.) It seems that Eurocentrism permeates our education much more than we are able to understand at surface level, and I don't think that's right.

It does make a difference to students’ learning on whether or not we acknowledge non-European sources of Mathematics. I believe that this comes down to a matter of morals and ethics, in the sense that we need to give credit where it’s due. (This reminds me a lot of learning about Watson and Crick receiving credit for Rosalind Franklin’s work on discovering the structure for DNA in my Biology classes.) I think it’s unfair to present concepts and theorems without giving credit to its sources, and not acknowledging when a name has been changed for societal reasons or linguistic ease. A large part, but less explicit aspect, of our roles as teachers is to accurately present information in an unbiased, honest, and inclusive way. Even if our lesson plans don’t encourage room for these sorts of discussions and learning moments, the next best thing we can do is inspire students to take learning into their own hands, and guide them to piece together elements of a larger picture by themselves. Part of the joy of learning math is that it translates continually and globally across history! It’s such a uniting topic, and in math classes, students should feel connected between other groups that have studied and contributed, and they should feel involved in the ongoing journey of Mathematics. 

It’s also important to address the impact of teaching from a Western-Eurocentic POV in our diverse, multicultural society. I’m not going to delve into systemic issues facing minority groups and socially constructing an identity of superiority and entitlement, but I don’t doubt that this is something to consider. I love mathematics for its ability to subtly weave itself through our ongoing tapestry of time, space, and culture- and only experiencing it from a Eurocentric point of view is quite hypocritical, isn’t it?