Irving Adler

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Irving Adler
Irving Adler at 75
Born	(1913-04-13)13 April 1913 Harlem, New York
Died	22 September 2012(2012-09-22) (aged 99) Bennington, Vermont
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	mathematician, writer
Relatives	Stephen L. Adler (son), Peggy Adler (daughter), Nathan Adler (psychologist) (brother)

Irving Adler (April 27, 1913 – September 22, 2012) was an American

Irving Adler was born in

Adler began his teaching career with a one-year appointment as a teacher-in-training at Stuyvesant High School. After being licensed as a regular teacher, he taught for 3 years as a substitute teacher during a period when the Board of Education, in violation of state law, refused to fill vacancies with regular teachers entitled to full benefits. He joined the Unemployed Teachers Association, which filed a lawsuit that resulted in 3,500 teachers, including Adler, being elevated from substitute to regular status in one day.

In the course of Adler's activities in the student peace movement of the 1930s, he met Ruth Relis, a Barnard College student whom he married when she graduated in 1935. Irving and Ruth Adler had two children, Stephen and Peggy.

Adler taught mathematics at various

Before the Feinberg Law was implemented, the New York Superintendent of Schools, William Jansen, began calling in teachers for questioning. Union leaders and active members were asked the same question being asked of those subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" On the advice of counsel, most refused to answer on the grounds that the question was a violation of section 26a of the New York Civil Service Law that prohibited questioning civil service employees about their political affiliation. Those who refused to answer the question, Adler among them, were dismissed for "insubordination and conduct unbecoming a teacher." Adler was suspended in 1952 and dismissed in 1954.

In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself in a subsequent case, Keyishian v. Board of Regents.^[8] The teachers who had been fired in the 1950s then sued for reinstatement. Adler was reinstated and retired from the city schools in 1977, with his pension rights restored.

Career as an author

Adler wrote his first science book for children, The Secret of Light,

A book Adler wrote for adults in 1958, The New Mathematics,[11] was important in the "New Math" curriculum reform movement, and led to his frequent appearances at educational meetings throughout North America.

In 1959, Irving and Ruth Adler together began writing "The Reason Why" series of books about scientific concepts for elementary school children. Adler also wrote The Giant Golden Book of Mathematics^[12] followed by a series of six arithmetic workbooks for grade-school children, aptly named Mathematics - Grade 1 through Mathematics - Grade 6. His workbooks eventually sold about 28 million copies worldwide.

Irving and Ruth Adler moved from their home in Bayside, New York, to

Ruth Adler died of cancer in early 1968. Later that year, Irving Adler married Joyce Sparer, a long-time family friend who had been teaching in Guyana. Irving and Joyce Sparer Adler co-authored Language and Man (1970), after which she pursued her own writings. After the death of Joyce's daughter Ellen, her three children came to live with them in Shaftsbury in 1977, and Adler retired from writing full-time. In 1984, the Adlers embarked on an around-the-world lecture tour, speaking at universities in Australia, New Zealand, and several countries in Asia, and Europe.

Fibonacci numbers and phyllotaxis

In the late 1970s, Adler turned his attention to the question of

• Belden Gold Medal for Excellence in Mathematics [14] (1927)
• National Science Foundation fellowship (1959)
• New York State Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development award for Outstanding Contributions to Children's Literature (1961) (with Ruth Adler)
• National Science Teachers Association
  / Children's Book Council citations for Outstanding Science Books for Children (1972, 1975, 1980, and 1990)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow (1982)
• Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow (1985)
• Saint Michael's College honorary Doctorate of Science (1990)
• Townsend Harris Hall of Fame,^[15] (1996)
• Townsend Harris Medal ^[16]
• City College of New York honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters (2002)
• Vermont
  ACLU lifetime achievement award for "nearly a century's dedication to making the world a more just and humane place through an unswerving belief in individual rights and equal treatment under the law." (2009)^[17][18]

Works Written with his wife, Ruth Adler

Professional listings and archives

• Something About the Author: Autobiography Series, Volume 15, Thomson Gale, 2006, pages 1–23.
• Something About the Author, Volume 1, Gale Research Inc., 1971, pages 2–4.
• Children's Literature Research Collection, University of Minnesota ^[19]
• The Mathematics Genealogy Project ^[2]
• Tamiment Library Guide to the Irving Adler Papers @ the Tamiment Collection^[20]

References

External links

• Obituary
• Irving Adler discussing health care reform (September 8, 2009) (embedded at Blip TV)
• FBI file on Irving Adler