Colin William Barter Hannaford was a British mathematics educator, author, and advocate for education reform.

Early life, education, and career

Hannaford was born in 1943 in Plymouth,

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during a bombing raid. He joined the

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at the age of 17, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1967. At the age of 29, Hannaford was involuntarily committed to an army psychiatric hospital. Hannaford claims the incident was politically motivated, in response to his criticism of British policy in Ireland. After three weeks, he was found sane and released. After retiring from the army, Hannaford trained as a mathematics teacher at the

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from 1975 to 1976. In 1976, he began teaching mathematics at Magdalen College School in

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, England. He then became the head of mathematics at the

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, where he taught for several decades, until 2004.

Education reform

Based on his experience as a mathematics teacher, Hannaford has advocated for a major shift in mathematics education to focus on critical thinking instead of memorization. He has described his teaching philosophy as an application of the

Socratic method The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate) is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw ou ...

to the classroom. In 2009, Hannaford hosted a conference for the

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called ''Giving Peace a Voice'', which aimed to show that children and students can practice critical and receptive discourse in mathematics lessons. In 2014, Hannaford published his book ''Educating Messiahs'', a collection of essays that he had previously shared with former students on Facebook, in which he expresses his hopes to teach students to think critically and learn to respectfully debate and disagree with one another. In 2018, Hannaford published a booklet from the point of view of his dog, Amadeus, which gained the support of

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, who provided free copies for children. In this booklet, he outlines his wish for students to no longer be categorised by perceived academic success.

Books

* ''473959'' (2007), * ''Educating Messiahs'' (2014), * ''Amadeus Teaches: Learning Together, Staying Strong'' (2018), * ''APE BRAINS TO COSMIC MINDS: the painful evolution of humankind'' (2018), * ''God is Evolution: Harvest of Souls'' (2019), * ''A TIDAL WAVE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS: To Stop Wars'' (2021),

Awards and honours

Hannaford was nominated for the Canadian Parliament Peace Prize in 1998, and won the Upton Sinclair Award for Educational Innovation in 2008. Hannaford received the Chadwick Prize for best essay by the Oxford Philosophical Society in 1996 for a paper titled "A THESIS: That the Development of a Rational, Innovative Society, Internally Harmonious and Tolerant of Dissent, Depends on Understanding the Original Connection between Mathematics and Democracy".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hannaford, Colin British writers Education reform Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers officers British philosophers British educators Writers about England Mathematics educators