Caleb Gattegno: A Timeline of his Life and Works

Caleb Gattegno, 1911 - 1988, is the author of the Silent Way, Words in Color, Gattegno mathematics and a pedagogical approach based on the subordination of teaching to learning.

A timeline based on notes he jotted down shortly before his death

Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1911

Licencié ès Sciences (B. Sc.) in Physics and Chemistry, 1931, University of Marseille

Diplôme d'Etudes Supérieurs de Mathématiques, 1936

Mathematics teacher at the Lycée Français in Alexandria (Mission Laïque Française), 1932-36

Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Basel: Les cas essentiellement géodésiques des équations de Hamilton-Jacobi intégrables par séparation des variables, 1937

Founder and Director of the Centre d'Etudes Supérieures Scientifiques et Technique in Cairo, 1938-45

"Visiting Mathematics Professor" at the University of Liverpool, 1945-46

Master of Arts in Education at the University of London: The Mathematical Definition of Education, 1948

Docteur ès Lettres (Philosophy) at the University of Lille: Recherches sur une pédagogie de l'affectivité, 1952

Mathematics teacher and teacher trainer for grammar schools in the London area and at the University of London, 1946-57

Member of a United Nations (Technical Assistance) mission to Ethiopia with the object of finding a solution to the problem of illiteracy, 1957-58

Founder of The Cuisenaire Company 1954; director until 1986.

Production of the Cuisenaire materials and the accompanying manuals

Company extended to include publishing in 1960 with branches in 7 countries. 70 authors including Caleb Gattegno were published between 1960 and 1982

Mathematics at Your Fingertips 1961, film.

Founder of Educational Solutions in 1968 in New York, where he lived until his death in 1988

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He travelled (10 trips around the world) and taught the subordination of teaching to learning in the fields of literacy, language learning and mathematics

Founder of the International Commission for the Study and Improvement of Mathematics Education (CIEAEM) in 1951; he left in 1960

In 1952 he founded The Association for Teaching Aids in Mathematics (ATAM), which became The Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM), and its journal Mathematics Teaching which is published 4 times a year and has 4000 members

In 1952 he also participated in the founding of the Société Belge des Professeurs de Mathématique d'expression française and its journal Mathematica et Paedagogia

From 1947 until his death, he ran seminars for international groups, mainly in Europe, in North and South America and in Japan

From 1971 until his death, he published the Educational Solutions Newsletter (see the bibliography of his works) five times a year

He is the author of pedagogical works, books on psychology and books of reflection on different subjects (death, health, love, economics)

Between 1944 and 1988 he published almost 120 books and 500 articles in scientific and other journals in a dozen countries. (See the bibliography of his works.)

He created pedagogical materials for the teaching of reading (Words in Color, Infused Reading), foreign languages (Silent Way) and mathematics (Numbers in Color, and geoboards).

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He died in Paris in 1988 two weeks after having run the seminar Le mystère de la communication near Grenoble.