Arithmetic Teaching in the Almeida Júnior's Tenure: the use of games as a psychological and methodological tooll

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the attempts of pedagogical renewal in the period 1936- 1938, particularly when Antônio Almeida Júnior headed the General Board of Public Instruction of the State of São Paulo. During his tenure, he advocated the reorganization of the education system aiming at greater efficiency. Following his guidelines, a few normal schools of the São Paulo state capital adopted modern pedagogical practices assisted by psychological instruments aiming to adjust the students to the school. Fromthe standpoint of Cultural History, we intend to analyze the pedagogical renewals for arithmetic teaching. What changes were established in the school culture for arithmetic teaching taking into account psychological knowledge? The study showed that, in the case of arithmetic, new materials were incorporated into the school culture of the time aiming at a better performance in education.