The ‘intuitive arithmetic’ of the francophonic primary school in Quebec province: a knowledge indispensable to everyone (1850-1920)

Abstract:

This article analyses the constitution of arithmetic knowledge taught in primary school at Province of Quebec, between 1850 and 1920, to understand the primary schools' purposes, the Arithmetic goals, and the organization of their knowledge. The documental sources that support the investigation are pedagogical conferences reports of normal schools featuring by catholic sector, models of arithmetic lessons published by the pedagogical press (journals and textbooks), school programs, and laws and school regulations. This documental set revealed the didactic orientations given to teachers, the emergence of new didactic materials, the reorganizations and systematizations of primary arithmetic, and the sedimentation of that knowledge. It is possible to conclude that, in the intuitive wave, the classroom was transformed into a big workshop of numbers and calculations and, in that time, the Francophonic primary school of Quebec works at the construction and the constitution of new knowledge: the ‘intuitive Arithmetic’.

Keywords:
didactics of arithmetic; didactic materials; intuitive method