Art Johnson

Background

Art Johnson was born on March 15, 1946, in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States. He is a son of Arthur V. and Bessie (Sideris) Johnson.

Education

Johnson once commented: “When I was in elementary school I enjoyed all my school subjects, but I especially liked mathematics. The numbers and shapes obeyed specific rules and never deviated from their relationships to each other. They followed the rules, and you could depend on that. English and history were different. The rules of grammar weren’t always true in the great books I read, never mind about poetry, which can seem to follow no format all. History had a flow-through time, but events didn’t always turn out as they should have. There were anomalies everywhere I looked. Nothing like the beauty and elegance of mathematics."

He got a Bachelor of Arts degree at Tufts University in 1967. In 1977 he received a Master of Education at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. In 1979 he got a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study at Northwestern University and became a Doctor of Education at Boston University in 1997.

Career

Art Johnson is an author and educator. He started his career at Nashua School District, Nashua, NH, as a math teacher in 1967 and worked there until 1999. He also has been a visiting professor at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts since 1999. During 1988-1989 he worked as a consultant at New Hampshire State Department of Education. He is also a speaker at conferences in the United States, Canada, and Hungary.

He once told: “As I grew older I was convinced about the superiority of mathematics to English and history. There was a certain clarity to mathematics than English and history could never have. But here I am, a writer who writes about the history of mathematics, among other topics. What happened? How did I ever get to be a writer, and about mathematics history, no less?"

Johnson’s "Famous Problems and Their Mathematicians" present sixty mathematical conundrums, biographical information about the mathematicians famous for solving them, and brief write-ups for classroom use that are “engaging and are quite suitable as in-class material or homework problems,” according to Thomas S. Downey of Kliatt. Johnson was praised by reviewers for presenting a broad range of offerings, including information on male and female mathematicians, problems ranging in difficulty from the easiest (appropriate for fifth graders) to the most difficult (which may be useful in high school classrooms), and both obscure and famous problems, such as Fermat’s last theorem, Goldbach’s conjecture, the four-color map theorem, and Königsberg bridges. Throughout, Johnson succeeds in sharing “the excitement and mystery of math and demonstrates how the discoveries can be applied to everyday situations,” remarked a contributor to Curriculum Review. Most importantly, Downey commented that Johnson’s brief mathematical summaries make it “much easier for teachers to include some interesting historical context into their classes.”

Achievements

• Art Johnson has written several books on mathematics and its history for middle and high school students and their teachers. These books are highly appreciated by teachers all over the United States.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Classic Math

    (Classic Math draws upon historical data from a variety of...)

    1994
  • Famous Problems and Their Mathematicians

    (Why did ordering an omelet cost one mathematician his lif...)

    1990
  • Prentice Hall Geometry Tools for a Changing World

    (Cover shows wear to the edges and spine. Pages are clean ...)

    1998
  • Teaching Today's Mathematics in the Middle Grades 2000
  • Teaching Mathematics to Culturally and Linguistically 2009

Views

Quotations: “I think it has to do with having something to say and being excited about it. I still find many areas of mathematics engaging, and I hope to convey that feeling to others through my writing. While not everyone is going to find mathematics compelling, I hope I can help them appreciate that mathematics matters."

“Sometimes I think I will wake up and it is all a dream. I am actually writing, and about my beloved mathematics. What could be better?”

Membership

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Association of Math Teachers of New Hampshire (representative to Math Teachers in New England, 1981-1990).

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  National Council of Teachers of Mathematics , United States

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  Association of Math Teachers of New Hampshire , United States

Connections

Art Johnson married a teacher Juanita Roberts on December 26, 1970. They have two children: Alexa Britt and Candace Raven.

Father:

Arthur V. Johnson

Mother:

Bessie (Sideris) Johnson

Spouse:

Juanita Roberts

Daughter:

Alexa Britt Johnson

Daughter:

Candace Raven Johnson

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 194
  2010