23/12/2020

In Folha, the disparity in the education of young Brazilians.

Foto: Divulgação MCTI

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S.Paulo.

The pandemic has forced a radical change in the way schools are operating around the world, and I believe this change will be largely irreversible. I don't think we will go back to teaching any subject, particularly mathematics, in the traditional way. In fact, it's not desirable that we do so: with the crisis come opportunities for progress that urgently need to be explored.

On the other hand, understanding the role that virtual technologies can and should play in the teaching environment is a challenge that we are still far from having solved. Human interaction plays a fundamental role in the pedagogical process, and it is unreasonable to think that the teacher's presence in the classroom can be replaced in the foreseeable future. In the case of mathematics, the issue is particularly critical because learning the subject is an inherently interactive process between the child and the teacher.

Beyond the question of "how," it is also important to question "what" we will teach in mathematics in 10 or 20 years. To project the future, it is useful to analyze the past.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the German Felix Klein (1849-1925), an excellent mathematician who was also very interested in teacher training, understood that the school curricula in Germany and other countries had stopped evolving. In his view, the schools of the time continued to teach mathematics from the 18th century or earlier, ignoring the entire body of knowledge that had been developed in the following century.

This led Klein to launch an international initiative aimed at bringing the mathematics discovered throughout the 19th century into the classroom, as well as contributing to adapting teacher training to the new times. The revolution he initiated profoundly influenced several countries, especially the most advanced ones. Brazil, with its still precarious education system, unfortunately, was left out of this innovative process and had to catch up much later. In fact, it continues to do so.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.