AN EXTRACURRICULAR EXPERIENCE OF MATHEMATICS WITH DEPRIVED CHILDREN

Abstract

We describe the conception and application in Portugal of an extra-curricular project – “O Continhas” – conceived and oriented for pre-school and primary school students and their respective teachers, which in a playful and relaxed atmosphere, transfers mathematical ideas, concepts and methods to the participating children, aiming the stimulation of their logical and abstract thinking, and, simultaneously, engaging their interest in and bringing them closer to – in a rigorous, but entertaining way –, a discipline that entails so much resistance and rejection. Central to the project are its ‘Learning Objects’, procedures directed towards the acquisition of conceptual and formal mathematical knowledge, as well as the awakening of orality, abstract thinking and calculation skills. We report the experience of the application of the project in a public school, inserted in a zone occupied by economically deprived recent immigrants. In an environment with serious shortages, common both to the school and to its students, mathematics was the target of generalized disregard; and in an institution with a scholarly rating well below the national average, deviant behaviors were the daily norm. The application of the project promoted positive changes in the individual and inter-personal manners of the students implicating in a series of perceptible improvements in their social conducts and in their global scholarly performance.

Key words: Playing with mathematics; Cognitive stimulation.