Numbers: which is its purpose? Curriculum and Invention in a Math class

Abstract How does a mathematical subject become worthy to enter the school curriculum? How does this occur? Would it be for their usefulness? Would it be for its historical value or force of a tradition? Would it be for its use within math? Which mathematical content is worthy to take place in a school curriculum? Among to these questions, we start researching the mathematics classroom, discussing mathematics as it is happening in the classroom. This article comes to unfold this research and focuses its attention on an activity performed in the mathematics classroom with grades six and seven of an elementary school in the Municipal Education Network of the mining city of Juiz de Fora, MG. In this activity, we provided tables numbered from 0 to 99 and pencils of various colors. Students were expected to color familiar numbers, find patterns, and mark anything on the table that caught their eye. It was in this context that Ana and her colleague marked the "changed numbers." Thus, they marked a curriculum, a math, a school. They invented a curriculum, a math, a school, a life. Invention of a curriculum? Can you invent a curriculum? Which mathematics for a curriculum invention? Breakthroughs of an activity.