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From Critique to Math War: A Divided Community of Belgian Mathematics Teachers

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Rods, Sets and Arrows

Part of the book series: History of Mathematics Education ((HME))

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Abstract

The developments during the 1960s seem to suggest that within the Belgian mathematics education community, there was a kind consensus about the modernization efforts and the way they were led by Papy and his CBPM. The reality was however different: During the 1960s, a real anti-modern mathematics movement originated, the opposition being headed by Léon Derwidué, professor at the Faculty of Engineering in Mons, and by MATEC, an organization of mathematics teachers in technical schools. During the 1970s, the Belgian mathematics education community was remarkably silent, and the math war seemed to have been fought. However, in the early 1980s, this silence was broken by pedagogues and mathematics educators who firmly criticized the starting points of modern mathematics and the way it was introduced and dictated at the primary and secondary level. These critics demanded that the abstract language and aberrations of modern mathematics be left behind, and that there be a return to a realistic, concrete, and basic teaching of mathematics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The battle of Hernani refers to the polarized reactions to the premiere of Victor Hugo’s theatre piece Hernani (1830) and generally refers to a quarrel between “ancients” and “moderns.”

  2. 2.

    In the French-speaking part of Belgium, 25% of the secondary schools run by the state received such an exception; in Flanders, it was only 10%. All Catholic schools of general secondary education implemented the reform from September 1, 1968 (Debefve, 1972b).

  3. 3.

    Wiskobas is an acronym for the Dutch translation of “Mathematics in primary school.” The Wiskobas project started in 1968 and was later adopted by the IOWO (Treffers, 1993) .

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  1. KU Leuven, Brussels, Belgium

    Dirk De Bock & Geert Vanpaemel

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  1. Dirk De Bock
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De Bock, D., Vanpaemel, G. (2019). From Critique to Math War: A Divided Community of Belgian Mathematics Teachers. In: Rods, Sets and Arrows. History of Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20599-7_8

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