Thread: I'm soon to meet my Grandpa!

Kat and I are getting ready to journey to warm sunny Canada - we leave in 2 short weeks. It's an odd situation, because I'm going there to meet my Grandpa - for the first time in my life.

I found my paternal family a few short years ago now. Unfortunately my Mum and Dad split up when I was but 4 years old, and to cut a long story short, I knew nothing of my paternal family until relatively recently. Once discovered, this unfolded an amazing story and a deeply personal journey. If I may, I wanted to share some of this with you before I go....

After we found each other in 2009, Grandpa sent me copies of all his many published books, and I found his autobiography particularly astonishing. Imagine my surprise to discover these following details......

Grandpa's Mother, my Great Grandmother, was Valeria Dienes,

Valeria Dienes (Hungarian dancer, teacher, and choreographer) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

and she was the first woman to obtain the degree of PhD from the Sorbonne. In fact, she obtained 2 doctrates; one in mathematics and the other in philosophy. She married my Great Grandfather, Pal Dienes, who was another leading Mathematician of the day. My Great Grandparents held "Open Universities" at the family estate in Hungary, and would invite their colleagues and friends to come to discuss topics ranging from politics to philosophy. The invitees regularly included Bertrand Russell and Zigmund Freud. In fact, Grandpa almost married Yo Freud, Zig's grand daughter!

Later in life, Grandpa came to Australia to take tenure as Professor of Mathematics at the University of Adelaide, where I was later to be born and even later to become a student, but Grandpa left Adelaide some years before my time to undertake an academic position at Harvard, before moving to Canada where he has remained.

My life has now all changed - I have found family in the Blue Mountains (Hello Simon and Rilka! ) and in Melbourne, and am very excited (if not slightly terrified) that shortly I shall be travelling across the world to meet Grandpa, an Aunt, and stay with my Uncle.

Imagine my surprise to discover my Grandpa after all this time. I knew nothing of his life, and please forgive my indulgence here, but an extrordinary life it has certainly been. I enclose some information about his life and legacy 'cos I'm so proud that he is my Grandad....


Prof. Dr. Zoltan Paul Dienes

The name of Zoltan P. Dienes (1916-) stands with those of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner as a legendary figure whose theories of learning have left a lasting impression on the field of mathematics education. Dienes' name is synonymous with the Multi-base blocks (also known as Dienes blocks) which he invented for the teaching of place value. He also is the inventor of Algebraic materials and logic blocks, which sowed the seeds of contemporary uses of manipulative materials in mathematics instruction. Dienes' place is unique in the field of mathematics education because of his theories on how mathematical structures can be taught from the early grades onwards using multiple embodiments through manipulatives, games, stories and dance. Dienes' notion of embodied knowledge presaged other cognitive scientists who eventually came to recognize the importance of embodied knowledge and situated cognition - where knowledge and abilities are organized around experience as much as they are organized around abstractions. Dienes was an early pioneer in what was later to be called sociocultural perspectives and democratization of learning.

Dr. Dienes was born in Hungary and moved to England at the age of 16. He has since worked around the globe spreading his vision of learning math through play to such places as England, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Guinea, USA, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and others, immigrating to Canada in 1966. He developed the new field of Psychomathematics (psychology of mathematics learning) and was the director of /the Centre de Recherche en Psychomathématiques /at the Université de Sherbrooke (Quebec) for many years. After his retirement, he taught part time in the Department of Education at Acadia University for a while and many local grade school teachers would remember visits to their classrooms. His latest book is a collection of articles written for the New Zealand Mathematics Magazine: "A Concrete Approach to the Architecture of Mathematics".

I'll post up some travel pics once we're there via my iPhone.

That's fantastic. One of my grandfathers died before I was born (but not before fathering more children to another relationship. I have a 62yo uncle I have never met) and the other one died while I was too young to remember him.

There is always a sense of "what were they like, what did they do..." that has always evaded me.

You get to get some closure on questions like that. You have a fantastic experience ahead of you. I wish you all the very best on your travels and the upcoming meetings.