[Maths-Education] Ole Skovsmose

[Peter Gates]

Ole Skovsmose

I am sure very many colleagues will share with me much sadness to hear of the death today of our colleague Ole Skovsmose in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Ole had been ill for some time and had been receiving treatment in hospital. He died with his partner Miriam Penteado, his family, and close friends around him.

For over 30 years Ole has been a powerful influence on the discipline of mathematics education, particularly with his work around critical mathematics education, about which he felt and wrote passionately. He had written so much it was often difficult keeping up with his output. I personally have 8 of his books on my bookshelves; It was only a month ago he completed the first draft of a book that he wanted to write for mathematics teachers.

I first came across Ole at ICME8 in Seville in 1996. The week before at PME20 in Valencia Tony Cotton and I had decided to organise a Mathematics Education and Society Conference, and Ole was one of the first colleagues we invited to give a Plenary Keynote Lecture. He gave a talk about “The problem of democracy in mathematics education”. Thirty years later, this is still a pertinent topic, and one he was still focused on. For that we will miss him.

Ole first went to University in Copenhagen in 1968 – the year when we saw the beginning of the widespread international student movement which inspired him in his own personal journey.

Ole was not only a writer and philosopher of mathematics education. He was also an accomplished artist. (https://www.artavita.com/artists/7085-ole-skovsmose)

I am sure many obituaries will be written about Ole, but if you want to know more about him, he has a website (https://oleskovsmose.com/) and a Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Skovsmose)

MES IC is asking for messages of condolence, memories of Ole, comments on his work, anything which people would like to contribute. The IC will collate these and will pass them on to Ole’s family.
Please send them in the first instance to me (peter.gates at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:peter.gates at nottingham.ac.uk>).

Peter Gates