Beauty and Serendipity in Creating Mathematics Curricula

Serendipity has been defined as the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy and beneficial way. Beauty is described by one dictionary as “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that brings pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.” In this presentation, I give examples of how these two aspects of experience have influenced what I would like to see in mathematics classrooms and my curriculum development work to engender them.