At the beginning of the twentieth century, although the high level of both Italian mathematical research and the scientific preparation offered by Italian universities was internationally recognised, the secondary schools were in a bad state. In order to address this situation, in 1905 the Minister for Education Leonardo Bianchi nominated a Royal Commission charged with drawing up a reform of secondary schools that would respond to the new requirements of Italian society and take into account the reform movements in other parts of Europe. The project for reform was presented in February 1908, but was deemed too radical and was never enacted. The mathematics programme and the methodological instructions related to it were drafted by Giovanni Vailati, a mathematician who belonged to the school of Giuseppe Peano and whose cultural interests were wide-ranging. In this paper, I concentrate on the following points: Vailati’s intellectual training; his criticisms of the secondary schools of the time; the pedagogical and methodological assumptions that he starts from in formulating his project for reform; his concrete proposals for a renovation of the teaching of mathematics; the criticisms of his proposals.
Matematica e humanitas scientifica Il progetto di rinnovamento della scuola di Giovanni Vailati
GIACARDI, Livia Maria
1999-01-01
Abstract
At the beginning of the twentieth century, although the high level of both Italian mathematical research and the scientific preparation offered by Italian universities was internationally recognised, the secondary schools were in a bad state. In order to address this situation, in 1905 the Minister for Education Leonardo Bianchi nominated a Royal Commission charged with drawing up a reform of secondary schools that would respond to the new requirements of Italian society and take into account the reform movements in other parts of Europe. The project for reform was presented in February 1908, but was deemed too radical and was never enacted. The mathematics programme and the methodological instructions related to it were drafted by Giovanni Vailati, a mathematician who belonged to the school of Giuseppe Peano and whose cultural interests were wide-ranging. In this paper, I concentrate on the following points: Vailati’s intellectual training; his criticisms of the secondary schools of the time; the pedagogical and methodological assumptions that he starts from in formulating his project for reform; his concrete proposals for a renovation of the teaching of mathematics; the criticisms of his proposals.
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
