Shirley M. Frye (née Urban)[1] is an American mathematics educator. She is the former president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics[2] and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.[3]
Education and career
Frye has a bachelor's degree from Thiel College (1951) and a master's degree from Arizona State University.[4] At Thiel College, one of her mentors was mathematics professor Nathan Harter.[1]
She worked for 40 years as a mathematics teacher, retiring in 1991.[5]In 1965 she hosted an educational television series on mathematics, on the Arizona State University channel KAET.[6]
Service
She first joined the board of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1973,[3] while working for the Scottsdale Unified School District in Arizona,[7] and she served as president from 1988 to 1990.[3]Under her presidency, the NCTM issued a report calling for more emphasis on reasoning over rote learning in primary and secondary school mathematics education,[8] for the incorporation of calculators into classroom work,[9] and for greater connections to everyday practical problems.[10] She was quoted in Reader's Digest as dismissive of innate mathematical ability in mathematics, saying "anyone can achieve confidence in math if properly instructed".[11]
Frye was president of the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics from 1981 to 1983.[2]She also served on the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council, and as part of that service helped author a series of primary-school mathematics textbooks.[3]
Recognition
Thiel College named Frye as their distinguished alumnus of the year in 1976.[12]The National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics gave Frye their Glenn Gilbert National Leadership Award in 1986.[2]Frye was the inaugural recipient of the Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics, in 1991.[13][14]She won the 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.[5][14]