Močnik’s views on the elimination of calculating illiteracy are still useful

Anton Perat

Summary:  This paper addresses Slovenia’s low rate of financial literacy. To date, there has been no systematic or coordinated action on the national level to support the elimination of financial illiteracy. However, before WWII, Slovenian arithmetic, as pioneered by Franz Močnik in the second half of the 19th century, dealt mostly with economic problems. In 1946, however, this type of mathematics lesson orientation was labelled as a capitalist error. In the introduction to his first arithmetic book in 1870, Močnik chose the monographic method of presenting the numbers from 1 to 2. The second arithmetic book brought the multiplication table and the fractions with one-digit denominators as well as those with denominators 10 and 100. This is how the closing accounts were, for the first time, used for calculating prices. In grade three, pupils could already calculate in the range from one thousand to thousandths (decimal numbers). In grade four, written arithmetic was concluded with the calculation of decimal notation. In 1875, the study of arithmetic was even more inclined toward the economic. At that time, Močnik introduced the principle of displaying digits equally to the left and right of the decimal separator in his arithmetic books. Furthermore, he introduced his “new Austrian method” of written subtraction (supplementation) and written division (an abbreviated method). These changes occurred because of the introduction of French measures by the Austrian government in 1876 and the division of guldins into kreutzers. Unfortunately, Slovenians learned nothing in 2007, when the euro was introduced.