Claudia Zaslavsky facts for kids

Claudia Zaslavsky (born January 12, 1917 – died January 13, 2006) was an American math teacher. She was also an ethnomathematician. This means she studied how different cultures use and understand math. She believed that math is found in many parts of life, not just in textbooks.

Early Life and Education

Claudia Zaslavsky was born in New York City on January 12, 1917. She grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Her first interest in math came from helping her parents in their store.

She studied math at Hunter College. Later, she earned a master's degree in statistics from the University of Michigan. In the 1950s, while raising her children, she worked as a bookkeeper. She also taught music classes to young children.

Becoming a Math Teacher

Claudia Zaslavsky became a math teacher at Woodlands High School in Hartsdale, New York. She wanted to make math more interesting for all her students. She especially wanted to connect with her African-American students.

Discovering African Mathematics

To help her students, she started studying the history of math in Africa. She found that not much information was easy to find. This led her on a long journey to learn about math in different African cultures.

She looked at how people used numbers and patterns. She studied how they told time, played games, and created art. In 1970, she traveled to East Africa. Her husband, Sam, helped by taking photos. Her son, Alan, who was teaching in Kenya, guided them.

Writing Africa Counts

Her research led her to write the book Africa Counts. This book shared her amazing discoveries about African math. It showed how math is a part of everyday life and culture.

Her work became important in a new field called Ethnomathematics. This field looks at how math ideas are used by people in different cultures. Claudia Zaslavsky believed that understanding math from an anthropological point of view was key. This means looking at math through the lens of human societies and cultures.

Fighting for Fairness

Claudia Zaslavsky was always a strong supporter of civil rights. She also worked for peace and social justice. She helped many new scholars in ethnomathematics. She always stressed how important it was to find and celebrate the math achievements of groups who were often overlooked. This included women and Jewish people. She had faced discrimination herself when she was younger.

Personal Life

Claudia Zaslavsky was married to Sam Zaslavsky. They had two sons. One son, Alan Zaslavsky, became a teacher in Kenya. He was also an activist and later a statistician. Her other son, Thomas Zaslavsky, became a mathematician.

Claudia Zaslavsky passed away on January 13, 2006, in Harlem, New York. She was 89 years old.

Books by Claudia Zaslavsky

Claudia Zaslavsky wrote many books about math and culture. Here are some of them:

• Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Cultures (1973)
• Preparing Young Children for Math: A Book of Games (1979)
• Count On Your Fingers African Style (1980)
• Math Comes Alive: Activities from Many Cultures (1987)
• Tic-Tac-Toe (1982)
• Zero: Is it Something? is it Nothing? (1989)
• Multicultural Mathematics: Interdisciplinary Cooperative-learning Activities, Gr. 6-9 (1993)
• Multicultural Math: Hands-On Math Activities from Around the World (1994)
• Fear of Math: How to Get Over It and Get On With Your Life (1994)
• The Multicultural Math Classroom: Bringing in the World (1996)
• Math Games and Activities from Around the World (1998)
• Number Sense and Nonsense: Building Math Creativity and Confidence Through Number Play (2001)
• More Math Games and Activities from Around the World (2003)