EMPLOYING MATHEMATICS: AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE WORLD OF LABOR

Abstract

This paper reports an experience developed in a public high school in São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, Brazil, aiming at promoting and increasing positive attitudes related to school mathematics content. In the reported activities, students from the 2nd year of high school investigated and presented their research on the presence and importance of the mathematics tools in the world of labor and, therefore, the daily actions of professionals from various fields of knowledge. The reflections on this experience allow inferring that when: 1) meeting with the influence of mathematics in social reality, in everyday situations of “workers”, 2) realizing that mathematics has been built over the centuries by the studies and “work” of many mathematics and 3) finding out that in many undergraduate courses there are disciplines that, directly or indirectly, deal with mathematical content, there was a greater participation of students in classes, as they started to see the meaning of the issues studied and the value of learning them.

Keywords: Mathematics; Mathematics Education; Labor; Professions.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/19827199606