Gale

Gus Gale receives his BH Neumann Award from Professor Neumann at a function at the Langley Hotel in Perth, WA, 10 January 1993. Gus was the founding AMC Director for New Zealand and has been the National Director for New Zealand for the full 35 year period covered by this history.

Career of Gus Gale

Gus Gale was the New Zealand Director of the Australian Mathematics Competition since its inception and through the whole period of history covered by this web site. At the writing of this in 2014 Gus was still in this position and a member of the Australian Mathematics Foundation. He is the most senior figure, still, in New Zealand, in the teaching of mathematics in this country.

Gus graduated in 1958 with a First Class Honours Degree in Mathematics at the University of Canterbury. For the next 27 years he taught at Cashmere, Lincoln, Riccarton and Papanui High Schools, and for 12 years he was Principal of Hornby High School. In retirement he spent 8 years teaching Maths to Engineering students at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.

He has always been aware that Mathematics is not a subject that all students find easy to grasp and has always wanted to make the subject interesting, fun, relevant to our surroundings, as well as being challenging and endeavouring to promote a love of mathematics in his students.

How has he done that? For several years he was President of the Canterbury Mathematical Association, and during this time he and the late Bevan Werry introduced the now very well established CANTAMATHS COMPETITION and EXHIBITION. Those who have children involved in this will know the excitement that the Team Competition generates with the supporters cheering on their team as if it was a football match. But there are sections available for students not chosen for the Team event to also show their interest, knowledge and skills of Mathematics. When Bevan and Gus first suggested this to their committee back in 1972 it was not received with any enthusiasm, so they decided to organise it themselves. In 2014 it is still going strong and has been copied by other subjects and by other countries. From the success of this, he was involved in developing other competitions with a Mathematical base. These are still held annually.

In 1966 Gus was one of the driving forces to establish the Senior Mathematics Competition for able senior students. It started as a competition for local students, but soon expanded to become a National one. Students sit a preliminary paper in their schools, and then the top 20 travel to Christchurch for the Final. They compete for cash prizes.

From 1975 to 1982, Gus was the Co-ordinator of a Pilot Scheme to Internally Assess School Certificate Mathematics in Canterbury, South Canterbury and Westland. The local High Schools were disappointed when the Education Department called a halt. But this was the time when the present NCEA was being developed and it is rewarding to note that the Assessment Process operating today contains some of the processes used in the Pilot Scheme of some 40 years before. At this time Gus was also heavily involved in co-ordinating a General Mathematics Course to cater for students who found the more academic curriculum too difficult and not relevant to their needs.

Gus also served as the examiner for School Certificate Mathematics and the old University Entrance Applied Mathematics examinations for several years and was a member of the University and Department of Education Curriculum Development Committees.

In the 1970s he worked with Professor John Andree of the Canterbury University Electrical Engineering Department along with research student Robert Platts to develop a computer program to produce school timetables. This was ground-breaking development in the 70s. Sufficient progress was made for Robert to complete his PhD and work for a company producing school time-tables.

Gus was seconded by the Department of Education in 1973-74 as a Mathematics Adviser to teachers in the Southern Region and organised many In-service Courses, including the first ever Australasian Mathematics Conference for Secondary and Tertiary teachers. It was at this Conference that the New Zealand Association of Mathematics Teachers (NZAMT) was established with Gus as its foundation President.

• In 1975 he was awarded a Woolf Fisher Travelling Fellowship
• In 1976 he was awarded a Teaching Fellowship to the University of Canterbury
• In 1985 he was awarded the Mobil Enterprise Award
• In 1990 he was awarded the NZ Commemoration Medal - CM for Services to Education
• In 2007 he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit - ONZM for Services to Mathematics Education

Since 1978, Gus has been the New Zealand Director for the Australian Mathematics Competition. in which New Zealand entries can be up to 30,000 annually. It is worth noting that New Zealand students do extremely well in the AMC. Medals are presented in Australia to about one in 10,000 students. On this basis New Zealand would expect 3 medals but often get 4, sometimes 5. The top students in the AMC can be selected for special training for membership of the New Zealand team at the International Mathematical Olymiad, involving teams from about 100 countries and New Zealand teams do very well here also.

In 1993 Gus was presented with the BH Neumann Award for his significant contribution to the enrichment of mathematics learning in New Zealand. Until 2014 Gus was the only New Zealander to receive this Award.

At the 2011 AMC medal ceremony in Auckland, with the medalists, are at left Professor Ivan Reilly, of the University of Auckland, and Peter Taylor, and at right Gus with NZ representative on the AMC Problems Committee Alan Parris.