Mathematics and Common Sense—The Dutch School

Abstract

The old illusion in Dutch mathematics education was that the teacher could lead the students into a completely new world, ignoring all their prior knowledge and common sense. Nowadays, in many Dutch mathematics lessons, the teachers encourage their students to use their common sense. This is the result of a silent revolution in mathematics education. In this chapter I will offer a collage of the work of several mathematics educators, who have helped to put the common sense of students in the middle of Dutch mathematics education. We will meet students from age 6 to 16 working with whole numbers, fractions, geometry and exponential functions and we will discover how their common sense plays a crucial role in the development of their mathematical knowledge.