Mathematics and Mathematics Education: Beginning a Dialogue in an Atmosphere of Increasing Estrangement

In 2009, Norma Presmeg wrote a piece for a special issue of the ZDM on interdisciplinarity. Presmeg’s paper presented her view of the general spirit of and possibilities for mathematics education research. This prompted a dialogue on the state of mathematics education by Ted Eisenberg and Michael Fried, published in the same issue of ZDM. This paper gives an account of that dialogue and the symposium in honor of Ted that arose out of it; in doing so, it also further elaborates on the themes that motivated this book.