Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2009, Page 64

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Tímarit um menntarannsóknir, 6. árgangur 2009
for the general public existed in the growing
capital. In 1928 admission to the Reykjavík
Grammar School was restricted to 25 new
pupils a year. Two new lower secondary
schools, one of them practically oriented, were
established in Reykjavík in order to provide
more educational options for young people,
in addition to another grammar school in a
more sparsely populated area. The restricted
admission to the Grammar School created
fierce competition at its entrance examination.
Then it may have been advisable to study
Bjarnason’s Arithmetic, favoured by Daníelsson
at the Reykjavík Grammar School.
The Great Depression of the 1930s meant
that many families could not afford textbooks.
In 1937 the State Textbook Publishing House
was established. It distributed free textbooks
at the primary level against a small levy on
families with children. A number of titles
were published in the first years, among them
two arithmetic textbook series, by Bjarnason
and by S. Arason, published in 1928. In time
Bjarnason’s series dominated. Despite the high
inflation rate during the next few decades the
government tax was not raised, and no new
teaching material for the 10–12 year age group
was published until 1969.
By 1946 the restricted admission to the
Reykjavík Grammar School had resulted in
widespread private tuition for the entrance
examination. The power of the grammar
schools to select their pupils was then removed
by establishing a national entrance examination
to be run and prepared for within the school
system all over the country as a measure towards
greater equality of educational opportunity.
The two lowest grades of the grammar schools
were changed to become schools for the
general public. As a compromise, the syllabus
of the former two first grades of the Reykjavík
Grammar School set by the regulations of
1937 was used as a basis for the national
examination; in mathematics the two textbooks
by Daníelsson, Arithmetic and Algebra,
remained as practically the sole option until
1966 and were not discarded until 1976.
Release from stagnation
The three decisions resulted in the fact that
generations of pupils, parents and teachers in
the early 1960s had never seen mathematics
presented in a way different from that of
Daníelsson and Bjarnason, who both
emphasized one method only for training speed
and accuracy, disregarded mental arithmetic,
and left important procedures unexplained.
The international modern mathematics wave
therefore hit the primary education level as
a revelation in the mid-1960s, raising high
and unrealistic expectations but also creating
a crucible of ideas and new perceptions of
school mathematics.
Heimildaskrá
Alþingistíðindi C (1931). Reykjavík.
Ríkisútgáfa skólabóka.
Alþingistíðindi D (1932). Reykjavík.
Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík.
Alþingistíðindi C (1934). Reykjavík.
Ríkisútgáfa skólabóka.
Andri Ísaksson (ritstjóri) (1968). Drög að
námsskrá í landsprófsdeildum miðskóla.
Reykjavík: Landsprófsnefnd.
Benedikt Tómasson og Jón Á.
Gissurarson (1953). Reikningsbók
handa framhaldsskólum. Reykjavík:
Ísafoldarprentsmiðja.
Benedikt Tómasson. (1961, 13. júlí).
Að loknum prófum – harkalegt val.
Morgunblaðið, bls 11.
Bjarni Vilhjálmsson. (1952). Landspróf
miðskóla 1946–1951. Reykjavík:
Fræðslumálastjórnin.
Bjarni Vilhjálmsson. (1959). Verkefni
við landspróf miðskóla 1952–1958.
Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfa Menningarsjóðs.
Kristín Bjarnadóttir