La confrontation entre expérience professionnelle des enseignants et recherches historiques : une expérience transitionnelle ?

How history of mathematics can help to face a crisis situation: the case of the polemic between Bernoulli and d’Alembert about the smallpox epidemic

“…So, I would propose that this be the commitment of mathematics education: our selfknowledge as mathematical beings. (Fried, 2007) In Bernard and Gosztonyi (2018), in the context of in-service teacher education and teachers' professional development, we suggested that historical texts can be seen as transitional objects. The term transitional object, developed by Winnicott in child psychology, was adapted to a context of professional education (in medicine) by Bonah and Danet (2014).…”

“…We introduced the term pre-transitional object to characterize texts where a potential to become transitional object in an interaction with teachers was identified. The first texts we used in this sense were studied in the frame of the interdisciplinary research project entitled "Series of problems at the crossroad of cultures" (Bernard, 2015): we have shown in Bernard and Gosztonyi (2018) how the reading sessions originally planned to provoke discussions related to problem-based teaching could generate various encounters with the texts, depending on the participants' preliminary experiences and problems.…”

“…However, instead of proposing specific classroom implementations, I will focus on how the study of this historical debate can support teachers' reflections and help them to confront efficiently the personal and professional challenges raised by the pandemic. I will base this reflection on an idea developed by Bernard and Gosztonyi (2018)-in line with didactical approaches on the teachers' interactions with resources (Gueudet et al, 2012;Remillard, 2005)-that historical texts can be seen as transitional objects or in other terms mirrors of the teachers' personal and professional experiences: that the reading of historical texts can stimulate dialogue with teachers about problems they are concerned with.…”