The method of analysis in the development of algebra

This paper describes the main outline of a course for teachers on the teaching of algebra. The aim of the course was twofold: to make teachers aware of students’ difficulties, and to discuss the nature of these difficulties. To place teachers in a different perspective, from which to look at didactic problems, we decided to use passages taken from the history of mathematics, without claiming that we were offering a course on the history of algebra. We chose the method of analysis as a common thread. This topic proved to be an efficient way of approaching some critical points of algebraic thinking.