Philosophy for Children Adapted to Mathematics: A Study of its Impact on the Evolution of Affective Factors

Abstract

Introduction: In teaching mathematics, great importance is placed on the disciplines content. This focus on content in educational programs often prevents teaching staff from investing time in pupils attitudes toward mathematics. Furthermore, many teachers have a restricted conception of mathematics; far too often, their mathematical and cultural knowledge is limited. This situation leads them to present mathematics in its algorithmic, technical and procedural dimensions. Pupils end up thinking that doing mathematics means memorizing procedures, putting them into application and finding answers. This teaching context does not sufficiently incite pupils to develop their creativity in mathematics, and scarcely stimulates their critical thinking. This approach can lead some pupils to failures which, when repeated, end up discouraging certain of them, undermining their self-esteem and creating fears or uneasiness toward mathematics. In fact, mathematics is a discipline comprising various languages: natural, symbolic and graphic (De Serres and Groleau, 1997). Thus, complex cognitive skills related to translation, in addition to positive attitudes, are necessary in order to make learning mathematics significant. When teachers obscure these two dimensions, some pupils are more likely to experience uneasiness and academic difficulties, which in turn generate negative beliefs or reinforce biases with regard to mathematics itself, to learning the discipline, and to the people that teach it (Lafortune, 1994). These beliefs and biases lead the pupils to enter the mathematics class with an a priori conviction that it will be boring, to consider their achievement in geometry as being of lesser importance than that in arithmetic, to denigrate pupils who are successful, and to think that success is based on the possession of some special or superior talent which they lack.