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This paper presents the results of a study on mathematics education according to the New Education movement in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in the context of educational reforms promoted by the government in 1927-1928. Based on the autobiographical writings of two teachers involved with Escola de Aperfeiçoamento, an institution of continuing education for teachers created by these reforms, we investigate proposals for the teaching and learning of mathematics conveyed in this training and the ways in which this training was mobilized in school practices in relation to mathematics. The article unfolds in four parts. The first one presents considerations about autobiographical writing. The second one deals with the autobiographical writings and their authors, Maria da Gloria Arreguy and Alda Lodi. The following section is intended to examine the references to the teaching of arithmetics in elementary school in the autobiographical writings of both. Finally, the text concludes with some considerations about the contributions of these documents for the history of mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1st stage of this paper, an evaluation was carried out of the teaching of statistics in second grade primary school by means of interviews with 21 mathematics teachers in schools in Lavras, MG. Most of the teachers had studied the discipline of statistics during their training. Despite this fact, when dealing with statistical concepts, they do so in a strictly descriptive way, with excessive formality and no context. During the 2nd stage, 3 pedagogical sessions were provided in order to discuss various statistical and probability concepts with teachers by applying teaching sequences. By the end, a maturing and adaptation of statistical reasoning was observed in the teachers but the need to plan more courses and workshops in relation to basic statistical concepts was confirmed in order to promote statistical literacy in students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]