WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO TEACH GEOMETRY IN PRIMARY EDUCATION?

I would like to dedicate this entry to the importance of teaching geometry in Primary Education. From my point of view, Geometry is an essential part of human being´s culture. It is difficult to find contexts in which geometry does not appear directly or indirectly and for this main reason, teachers have to teach geometry in the school in a natural way in order to make see to students that they can use it in their daily life. 

As it has been discused above, we can affirm that teaching geometry is important in Primary Education because:

1. It is applied in the reality. According to the entries that I have written, we can find geometry along the history, videogames, in the social life, nature, in our city and so on. For this reason, I think that teachers have to present the geometry as a real content and therefore, students will learn it as something that they can put in practise in their daily lives.
2. We use geometry in our everyday language, for example parallel streets and spiral staircase, between others. 
3. According to Guerrero (2010) geometry is useful for the study of others mathematical topics and vice versa. 
4. Geometry allows students to understand their perception of the space, their capacity of visualisation and abstraction. From my point of view, the teaching of geometry has to be carried out gradually to promote in students the ablity of internalising the points mentioned before and therefore, they will be able to go beyond in geometry. 

I would like to conclude this entry with a quote of Alsina (1998) who affirms that:

Su enseñanza es fundamental además ya que gracias a la Geometría el estudiante adquiere un criterio al escuchar leer y pensar, ya que cuando el alumno estudia geometría, deja de aceptar a ciegas proposiciones e ideas y se le enseña a pensar de forma clara y crítica, antes de hacer conclusiones .(p.128)

List of documents used to write this entry

• Alsina, C., Burgués y Fortuna, J.M. (1987). Invitación a la didáctica de la geometría. Madrid: Síntesis
• Alsina, C., Burgués y Fortuna, J.M. (1998). Enseñar matemáticas. Barcelona. Grào.
• Guerrero, F.J. (2010) La importancia de la geometría en Primaria. Cádiz. Melli.

https://archivos.csif.es/archivos/andalucia/ensenanza/revistas/csicsif/revista/pdf/Numero_36/FRANCISCO%20JAVIER_GUERRERO_1.pdf