Mathematical coursebooks for pupils of the third form of Latvian and Lithuanian schools in 1970s

• Main Authors: Ažubalis, Algirdas Povilas, Žilėnaitė, Rugilė
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Latvian and Lithuanian coursebooks; mathematics; primary school; third form; Vorkuta
• Online Access: http://lka.lvb.lt/LKA:ELABAPDB25755888&prefLang=en_US

Prior to implementation of introducing universal secondary education from the year 1970, new teaching programmes and coursebooks were being prepared in the USSR. The new trend of teaching mathematics based on the logic of the set theory that spread rapidly in the West in the middle of the 20th century was approved for use in the USSR. Meetings and conferences related to the said matter took place in Moscow. In discussions on problems of teaching mathematics at primary school, three scientists – Bronius Balčytis from Šiauliai Pedagogical Institute (Lithuania), Janis Mencis (1914–2011) from Liepaja Pedagogical Institute (Latvia) and Olaf Prinits (1924–2006) from Tartu University (Estonia), – on the base of the fact that integration of all school subjects with real life and other school subjects was strongly emphasized in newly prepared programmes, provided the following idea: „Integration of teaching mathematics at the primary school with the real life will be impossible, if the same coursebook created in Moscow will be used for teaching children in Klaipėda, Liepaja, Tartu, Vorkuta, Vladivostok, Tashkent and Caucasus. What is clear for a child residing in the European part of the country, will not be clear for a southerner, a child from Caucasian mountains or a northerner. So, we ask a permit to compile coursebooks individually for each Republic according to the same programme“. Representatives of Georgia had supported the idea as well. So, the Baltic Republics and Georgia gained a right to compile and publish more national, bound with a certain Republic, mathematical coursebooks for the forms I–III. For the first time in the USSR, methodic guides for mathematics teachers and copybooks for practical training in mathematics for pupils (in addition to the coursebooks) were prepared and published. It was an important victory of Baltic Republics both in political and didactic aspects. The volume of the work does not enable analyzing of all above-mentioned didactic works. We confine ourselves only to Latvian and Lithuanian coursebooks of the said period for the pupils of the third form, the more especially as the third form was the last in the primary school of that period and the contents of the coursebook clearly discloses what could learn a pupil of the primary school at a lesson of mathematics.