A geometria na província do Grão-Pará: a inserção nos currículos e em outros discursos

Abstract

The objective of this work is to provide an analytical description of the aspects that favored the modification of Mathematics teaching in the Grao-Pará Province during the 19th century. This research was initiated from a preliminary survey in documents that dealt with the History of teaching in the Amazon in this period, in order to reach the purpose of the work, started with the following questions: What is the social context in the Province of Grão-Pará, favored the emergence of these knowledge? What are the discourses about mathematics teaching at the time? What is the relation of Mathematics teachers to the structures of political power? Seeking to answer such questions, he focused mainly on primary sources such as: laws, decrees and government reports concerning the public education of the Province, regulations of the institution Liceu Paraense, books and newspapers of the time and also in secondary sources that dealt with this subject or correlates. The documentary analysis extended from 1838, year of the resumption of the activities of the Provincial Assembly, an organ that legislated on the education of the Province until 1851, the year of a reform that modified the teaching of Geometry in the Liceu Paraense. Some conclusions were reached, such as the following ones: in 1838 favorable discourses emerged for the insertion of Geometric knowledge in the Province. The purpose of these discourses had been realized in 1840, with the creation of the Geometry School that functioned in the Episcopal Seminary in the years 1840 and 1841 and whose main purpose was to train skilled workers to play the infrastructure works of the city. With the reform of 1841, which included, among other things, the establishment of the Liceu Paraense, an institution that had the purpose of providing secondary education in the Province of Grão-Pará; the Geometry school became part of the Chair of this institution, and this knowledge became part of the Chair "Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry" and that the presence of Geometry since the first curriculum of the Liceu Paraense, was part of a process modernization of education in the Empire Province. That the teachers who taught the discipline of Geometry, besides professors were influential citizens in the social and political life of the society of the Province, occupying positions as judge of Right and provincial Deputies.