[See also: Douglas Quadling]
In 1979 I joined the staff at Homerton College, Cambridge as a temporary replacement for Stuart Plunkett on study leave. This was my first job after school teaching as a teacher educator. I worked alongside Richard Light, Tim Rowland, Bob Burn and Hilary Shuard. Alan Bishop at the university department of education (a separate body then) organised a masters course in mathematics education which our students as well as his attended. I also sat in when I could as an introduction to the fledgling science of mathematics education. Douglas Quadling was around, possibly teaching at the 3rd body, the Institute of Education (where Angela Walsh worked too). I remember most vividly the 2 seminars he gave to the masters course. He was a modest but immensely knowledgeable man who described very clearly and with great insight the development of the mathematics curriculum of the previous 50 years or more, and the great growth of textbook schemes in the 60s and 70s, including, most notably, the SMP series. His seminars were deceptively chatty, but rich in content and atmosphere. He was very active in the Mathematical Association. He published many texts and I especially remember his insightful 1969 book, The same, but different : a survey of the notion of equivalence in the context of school mathematics / by D. A. Quadling (published by Bell for MA), an early acknowledgement of a critical notion in school mathematics. I’m sure many others have further deep and affectionate memories of this man and his contribution.
De Morgan Gazette 