A brief history of the reform of Japanese primary school mathematics textbooks
The reform of Japanese primary school mathematics textbooks has gone through a tortuous process. Before World War II, the level of mathematics in primary schools was relatively high. In the 1940s, due to the influence of militarism, the basic knowledge was weakened and the level declined. After World War II, Japan was defeated and formulated a new basic education law and school education law. 1947 the draft of elementary school arithmetic syllabus was redrafted. Because this syllabus is higher than that of the United States, it was revised on the basis of the American version in 1948 after receiving expert opinions from the American education group, and the content was deleted. Multiplication and division numbers are decimals, and the multiplication and division methods, proportions, areas of triangles and circles of fractions have all been moved to junior high school teaching, and the teaching hours have also been reduced. The teaching content is arranged according to the life unit in the textbook. As a result, not only the degree of mathematicization is reduced, but also students can't acquire systematic mathematical knowledge. After that, the society and educational circles have made a fierce criticism on the decline of basic academic ability. In order to adapt to the development of Japanese economy and science and technology, 1958 put forward the reform policy of "enriching basic academic ability and improving science and technology education", revised the syllabus, increased the teaching hours of primary school mathematics and improved the level of primary school mathematics. After learning arithmetic and simple graphic knowledge in primary schools, we should regard multiplication and division as decimal, multiplication and division of fractions, percentages and proportions. Teaching in primary school again. At the same time, it also strengthens the teaching of quantitative relations and attaches importance to the cultivation of mathematical thinking methods. 1968 revision of elementary school arithmetic outline. This revision was carried out at the climax of the international modernization movement of mathematics education. On the one hand, the traditional arithmetic content is carefully selected, such as simplifying some complicated large number calculations, on the other hand, modern mathematical concepts are added, such as introducing the terms and symbols of sets, the properties of equations, the concept of negative numbers, and the preliminary understanding of probability. It strengthens the idea of function and adds some geometric knowledge, such as congruence and similarity, symmetry, translation, regular polygon, prism and pyramid, straight line in space, parallelism and verticality of plane, etc. Because of adding more new contents and deleting some necessary basic knowledge and skills of mathematics, it has caused certain difficulties in teaching and has been criticized by education and society. For example, a report of the National Education Research Institute Conference pointed out that "most teachers feel that more than half of the children can't accept their classes". 1977 The Ministry of Education has revised the mathematics syllabus for primary schools as follows: 1. The contents are deleted, including the concept of negative number, the establishment of verification operation, the volume of cylinder, the body of revolution, the nature and probability of equation, etc. 2. Some contents are moved back appropriately, such as simple scores such as 1/2 and 1/3 from the second grade to the third grade, broken-line statistical charts from the third grade to the fourth grade, concepts of volume and congruent graphics from the fourth grade to the fifth grade, and symmetry, graphic inclusion and frequency distribution from the fifth grade to the sixth grade; 3. Strengthen basic knowledge and basic training, such as strengthening the practice of adding and subtracting multiplication tables within 20 years, and increasing 1 class hour every week in grades one and two (slightly reduced in senior grades); 4. The collective language and symbols have not been produced, nor have they been taught as formal contents, but have permeated the collective thoughts, reflecting the unchanged direction of modernization; General mathematical terms and symbols have also been appropriately simplified. 1990 The Ministry of Education revised the mathematics syllabus for primary schools. This revision is mainly to adapt to Japan's economic development and changes in the information society. At the same time, consider the connection between primary and secondary schools, promote children's intellectual development, and further cultivate students' ability and attitude to deal with daily things with mathematical theory. The specific changes are as follows: 1. Delete the possibility of four operations, express the degree of uncertain events with numbers, and express the characteristics of inverse proportion with images. 2. Add some contents, such as dividend, the same property of divisor and multiplier, the greatest common divisor and the least common multiple, the volume and surface area of prism and pyramid, and the volume of cylinder and cone; 3. Strengthen some contents, such as estimation, the elements of geometric figures and the relationship between figures. In addition, it is emphasized to deepen the understanding of the meaning of the learned content through operations, experiments and other activities. In order to reduce the calculation burden, the fifth grade began to use electronic calculators.