Indicações metodológicas para o ensino da Matemática presentes em livros que circularam em Minas Gerais na primeira metade do século XX: um estudo da biblioteca pessoal da professora Alda Lodi

Abstract

In this dissertation, we report an investigation on the methodological indications for the teaching of Mathematics in primary school, in the first half of the 20th century, using as source books that compose the Alda Lodi Personal Library (BPAL). Alda Lodi (18982002), a teacher from Minas Gerais, worked for 70 years in education. She was chosen by the government of Minas Gerais as a member of the official commission of teachers who attended in 1927 a specialization in Teacher's College, Columbia University, in the United States. She was one of the founders of Escola de Aperfeiçoamento, in Belo Horizonte, where she taught "Methodology of Arithmetic", in order to prepare teachers for Primary Education. During her life she accumulated 1204 books, of which 338 are on Mathematics or on the teaching of Mathematics. We aimed to investigate the methodological indications for the teaching of Mathematics in the first half of the 20th century, using as a source books that make up the BPAL. To reach this goal, we have used some strategies: we related the books acquired by Alda Lodi to the pedagogical ideas that circulated in the period and we studied the tendencies for the teaching of Mathematics in primary school in the books of her personal collection. Our analysis lies in the first half of the twentieth century, when Alda Lodi worked directly with the training of mathematics teachers. We studied specially two works of the collection: The New Methods in Arithmetic, by Edward Lee Thorndike, and The Arithmetic of the New School, by Everardo Backheuser. The choice of these works was due to the fact that they deal directly with subjects related to Mathematics and reveal different educational perspectives. We also considered the presence of reader marks left by Professor Alda Lodi in these books as well as the existence of records about their acquisition in them. The main results of the research were the perception of differences between the ideas of the American writer and the Brazilian author, who participated in Catholic educational movements. Other differences were their views about the central role of the child in the teaching process, the aspects of the life of children that should be considered in teaching, and the coeducation of boys and girls.