Understanding Numeracy

In Gale’s lecture, she talks about what mathematics is and how its definition goes far beyond numbers. Mathematics is about quantity, patterns, relationships, shapes and objects, and certainty and uncertainty. Eurocentric ideas of quantity would mean needing an exact number. Gale challenges this view with the idea of filling a pot up with potatoes. When asking how many potatoes you need, you can’t give a number because potatoes are all a different size. You could say ten potatoes, and someone could bring you baby potatoes. Instead, you provide them with the pot and say enough to fill up this pot. In this way, Eurocentric views of mathematics are challenged and show that everyone is a mathematic being. Gale also talks of the Inuit math system and how it is a base 20, with a sub-base 5. Historically, base 20 comes from fingers and toes, and sub-base 5 from the number of fingers on a hand and toes on a foot. When students are tested in Eurocentric ways, they were way below the provincial average. When tested orally, with context, and in the base 20 and sub-base 5 system, they tested way above the provincial average.

Leroy Little Bear’s article, Jagged Worldviews Colliding, talks about Indigenous Ways of knowing. Bear talks of cyclical or repetitive patterns and constant motion and how they are essential parts of Indigenous understandings of the world around them. This mathematic understanding of patterns may not have numbers attached, such as a Eurocentric view, but that does not mean it is not mathematic. This way of knowing also “emphasizes process as opposed to product” which is often the opposite of Eurocentric views. Mathematics in Eurocentric views focus mostly on the product, as in the answer to mathematic questions.

Poirier’s article Teaching Mathematics and the Inuit Community talks of mathematical knowledge and how it is a social construction, so the “learner’s culture and community will play an important role in learning.” The article talks of 6 domains found in all cultures that are necessary for the development of mathematical knowledge. The first is counting. In the Inuit language, each number “has different forms according to the context.” For example, the number three has six different contexts, in which three of them have “developed under European influence.” Inuit ways of knowing also challenge the Eurocentric ideas of measuring. Many women will use parts of the body to measure length. The Inuit have also designed very precise ways to speak about spatial relations, all measured by ‘how easy they are to perceive’ when translated to English. Lastly, the way the Inuit measure months “depends on how long it takes for a natural event to take place.” The months may change each year depending on nature but are based on a cyclical understanding of the world around them.