Harold Pascoe Fawcett was born on a farm in Upper Sackville, New Brunswick, July 20, 1894.  He graduated from Mount Allison University in 1914 and began his career as a high school teacher in Fort Fairfield, Maine.  Three years later he enlisted in the United States Army and eventually earned a commission as a second lieutenant.  Fawcett’s intelligence and ability to teach were quickly recognized by the Army, and they made him an interpreter and a trainer of other soldiers.  Among his many distinguished students was Archie Roosevelt, son of President Teddy Roosevelt. 
           
At the end of World War I Fawcett became a US citizen and accepted a position as head of the home study division of YMCA schools in New York.  He earned a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1924 and began teaching in their extension division.  He completed his Ph.D. at Columbia in 1937.  In the meantime, he had joined the faculty at Ohio State University in 1932, where he rose to full professor in 1943.  Before retiring in 1964, he served as chair of the Department of Education and associate director of the University School.

Fawcett was a member of the NCTM board of directors from 1952-55, and NCTM President from 1958-60.  His best-known publications are the NCTM Thirteenth Yearbook, The Nature of Proof (1938) and The Teaching of Mathematics from Counting to Calculus (1970), co-authored with one of his former students, Kenneth Cummins.  Dr. Fawcett believed that the mathematics classroom should be used to teach students to think, so rather than giving his students a published textbook, he guided the class as they worked to develop their own definitions and propositions.  He was a pioneer in student-centered pedagogy and inquiry learning.  Renewed interest in this approach led NCTM to re-issue The Nature of Proof in 1995.

On November 4, 1950, Dr. Fawcett convened a meeting of  mathematics educators at the Ohio State University Faculty Club to consider the possibility of organizing an Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  There was complete agreement within the group, and the first OCTM meeting was held the following April. 

Dr. Fawcett received many accolades and honors during his lifetime, including the Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1961 and an honorary doctorate from Kent State University in 1969.  He died in 1976.