A tireless organizer ---------------------------
André Antibi soon developed a passion for teaching mathematics in middle and high school. He assembled and led a team of writers that produced some thirty textbooks spanning every grade level, with Antibi as lead author. Dozens of articles published in major mathematics education journals attest to his distinctive gift for analysis and synthesis.
André was also a gifted communicator who loved sharing his passions and regularly organized conferences on his favorite subjects. His activities attracted many researchers from several countries. They came to Toulouse to hone their research and bring it to fruition in substantial doctoral theses, which André supervised with tact and expertise. André Antibi's influence soon extended beyond France to Belgium, Spain, Africa and Latin America.
An original and sometimes controversial mathematics education specialist -------------------------------------------
What best characterized André Antibi's teaching was his admirable ability to present the most complex subjects simply. He excelled at the difficult art of making knowledge accessible. He will no doubt be remembered for bringing to light the macabre constant, a major dysfunction in an education system that systematically demands a fixed failure rate. Although his ideas won over many people in education, his remarks were sometimes misinterpreted. Yet from the outset, he had made clear that this was "a critical analysis of a system, and certainly not criticism of some teachers". His proposed solution to failure, the Contract of Trust assessment method, was adopted by some and rejected by others. It too was often misunderstood. By giving students a large number of exercises and problems to solve, several of which would reappear as questions in their assessments, he sought to make them work harder while rebuilding their confidence. He never intended to take a lax approach. Quite the opposite.
A rigorous and creative musician --------------------------------
Lastly, no account of André Antibi would be complete without celebrating the artist he was. Anyone who ever spent a post-conference evening with him knows this: whether at the piano, on the guitar or even playing a traditional instrument he had only just discovered, he could create a festive atmosphere tinged with tenderness. He loved to sing. A singer-songwriter and performer, he left us several CDs in which he laid himself bare, yet with the delicate reserve so characteristic of him. Whether in Les Deux Maisons (2007) or Au fond de moi (2012), the man’s depth is fully revealed, as he shares his doubts and wounds with us.
André was a mathematics educator and a born popularizer, so it is hardly surprising that one of his last creations—his final work—was a groundbreaking method book that made *Piano d’accompagnement vite et bien* (Nathan, 2018) accessible to everyone. Thank you, André.