The Maths Ed World is of course full of people who have failed upwards, but Anthony Harradine is different; Anthony has succeeded downwards. Anthony long ago forwent a position of considerable apparatchik clout to instead Do Things That Matter. Anthony’s projects notably include Numerical Acumen and Mathscraft, but there is plenty, plenty more. Anthony Harradine is one of my, very few, maths ed heroes.
This first of the invited guest posts consists of the slides from Anthony’s recent keynote for the 2022 MASA annual conference. The theme of the Conference was Partnership, Positivity and Playfulness, and the title of Anthony’s talk was Simplify. Anthony’s abstract, addressing this theme, is on his second slide.
Below are Anthony’s slides in PDF form, which you can click through or scroll or download. It’s not the optimal form, but it seemed simplest here, and I thought it worth a shot. Note that Anthony’s original Keynote slides also contained an excerpt from a very funny skit by comedian Peter Kay. So, when, and only when, you get to slide 6, you should watch the Kay excerpt, here.*
Here’s Anthony:
*) No one listens. When you get to slide 6, click here, and Kay’s full skit is here.