Influences from the Royaumont-seminar in 1959 on primary school arithmetic in Iceland

• Published in: Netla
• Main Author: Bjarnadóttir, Kristín
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2018
• Subjects: School mathematics; The Royaumont seminar 1959; NKMM; Bundgaard-textbook series; School mathematics textbooks; Skólastærðfræði; Royaumont-málþingið; Bundgaard-námsefni; Kennslubækur í stærðfræði; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/2815; https://doi.org/10.24270/netla.2018.9

A seminar on new thinking in school mathematics was held in Royaumont, France in 1959. At the seminar, the European proponents for reform of school mathematics met representatives of the New Math movement in the United States. Some of the European participants were members of the Bourbaki-group of mathematicians who worked on presenting all mathematics in a unified modern way, mathematique moderne. One of the final recommendations of the seminar was that each country could reform its mathematics teaching according to its own needs; establishing as much cooperation as possible was recommended, however. The Nordic participants at the Royaumont Seminar agreed upon cooperation on reform of mathematics teaching and presented their ideas to governmental bodies. The issue was taken up in the Nordic Council, which decided to set up a committee under its Culture Commission. Each of four countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – appointed four persons to the Nordic Committee for Modernizing Mathematics Teaching, NKMM. The Nordic Committee’s task was to analyse the current situation in mathematics education, to work out curriculum plans and to write experimental texts. The committee appointed several teams of writers. The focus was on mathematical content, and the teaching of seventh to twelfth grades was its main object. However, it was decided to handle mathematics courses throughout the primary level, and for that purpose the committee contacted extra experts for the first to sixth grades of primary school. Writing sessions were arranged in summer 1961. Some texts were ready that autumn, and others were to be so successively until the beginning of 1966. A Danish author, Agnete Bundgaard, and her Finnish collaborator wrote a textbook series for the primary level. The work was translated into Icelandic and published, nearly simultaneously with its Danish publication. Denmark was one of the countries which went the furthest when it came to introducing the Bourbaki tradition into university programs, and eventually ...