Around 1900 B.C., a student in the Sumerian city of Nippur, in what’s now Iraq, copied a multiplication table onto a clay tablet. Some 4,000 years later, that schoolwork survives, as do the student’s ...

While American children once learned to add by reading a poster of animals and birds, they do it now by playing games on computers. Each step in between—whether it be a box of blocks or exercises ...

“The Secret Lives of Numbers,” by Kate Kitagawa and Timothy Revell, highlights overlooked contributions to the field by ancient thinkers, non-Westerners and women. By Alec Wilkinson Alec Wilkinson is ...

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics releases “Currisulum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics.” The document emphasizes that students should understand the concepts underlying ...