In mathematics education, one way to approach the question of « What should
a mathematics teacher know? » is through the framework of Mathematical
Knowledge for Teaching (MKT), based on the work of Deborah Ball and others. In most articles on MKT, history of mathematics is barely mentioned or not
mentioned at all. However, there are exceptions pointing out that history of
mathematics has a role in several – or indeed all – the subdomains of the MKT
model. A further exploration of this can give important insights into the
discussion on the role of history of mathematics in teacher education and in
mathematics teaching, as well as enhance the MKT theory with insights from the work on history of mathematics.

In this article, I discuss didactical examples from the literature related to
The International Study Group on the relations between the History and
Pedagogy of Mathematics (HPM), to illustrate and discuss the role of history of
mathematics in the framework of MKT.