| Popis: |
Much of the adverse criticism of the teaching of arithmetic in the past can be summed up in one sentence. The complaint has been that too often the learning has been “mere formalism.” In this eontext the term “formalism” means that mathematics becomes a game played with symbols according to fixed rules. Little or no attention is paid to the “meaning” of the symbols; that is, the nature of the objects, operations, and relations that are symbolized. Lack of understanding by students, lack of motivation, lack of satisfactory achievement, lack of ability to apply mathematics in problem solving, and other more specific complaints are often attributable, in the last analysis, to excessive formalism. |
