Saberes para ensinar matemática: manuais de didática geral e didática da matemática em tempos de Matemática Moderna

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes knowledge to teach mathematics in primary education in the 1960s. For the development of the research, it was considered as sources of Manuals of General Didactics and Didactics of Mathematics published already in the period of the Movement of Modern Mathematics (MMM), more precisely from 1960s. Theoretical and methodological references are based on Cultural History and recent GHEMAT studies on the professional knowledge of the teacher who teaches mathematics. We seek to answer the following question: What signs of knowledge to teach can be identified in Manuals of General Didactics and Didactics of Mathematics, published in Brazil, during the period of Modern Mathematics, in the 1960? The analysis of the manuals makes it possible to construct a representation that very different knowledge could be required of teachers to teach mathematics to children. Still with accents from the Escanovistas, the analytical method applied to geometry, for example, justifies the introduction of spatial forms for the first series. Knowledge about the Cuisinaire Method was put in place, analyzed and criticized. Drawing and handicrafts would be knowledge to teach mathematics that would provide support for, for example, the construction of geometric solids, abacuses or games. The use of symbols, the need for abstraction and the emphasis on logical reasoning are knowledge to teach mathematics present in the representative manuals of Modern Mathematics analyzed. Therefore, the teacher should have knowledge about the power of synthesis that symbolic language allows, and how to make sense of it to introduce it to children. This work resulted in an educational product, a magazine, published separately. The magazine discusses the introduction of notions of topology and geometry through transformations in the early years of elementary school. The educational product is aimed at teachers who teach mathematics in the early years.