Unmasking the equation

History for the teaching of which mathematics?

Abstract

Many studies have been done about the ways to incorporate history in the teaching of mathematics. Most of them, however, fail to question the very mathematics we intend to teach, admitting topics in the curricula as objects students must learn as such. Using the example of the equation, we try to show that the statement of this concept in symbolic language masks many assumptions not made explicit in teaching. The role of history would so be to exhibit the ways in which it was constituted as an object, emphasizing the contingent character of the choices that were done for the equation to acquire the aspect we know nowadays.