• Think back on your experiences of the teaching and learning of mathematics — were there aspects of it that were oppressive and/or discriminating for you or other students?
• After reading Poirier’s article: Teaching mathematics and the Inuit Community, identify at least three ways in which Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas about the purposes of mathematics and the way we learn it.

When I reflect on my experience of mathematics in school, I feel like the biggest aspect of oppression/discrimination that I observed related to the instructional strategies that took place. Although the content was inherently uninclusive to ideologies beyond current North American perspectives, the way that the content was taught always felt very “set-in-stone” as if you either get it or you don’t. I experience a few teachers who had the capacity and patience to reexplain concepts in alternative ways to help conceptualize the math better, but often there was very little time to review because we were “so incredibly behind in the textbook!”. I experience difficulties in understanding math concepts, but I can usually wrap my head around how I need to do it if I have a basic strategy in solving problems, and I am able to see step-by-step how this strategy evolves into more complicated problems. Because most teachers focused primarily on their way of teaching math, a student who struggled to understand that specific strategy would experience difficult stress and emotions surrounding math simply because the teaching did not accommodate for how that student learns.

Poirier’s article shifted my perspective of mathematics because I had never thought it could be conceptualized a different way. Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric principles of math simply due to the purpose it serves in the two different ways of life. Inuit mathematics teaches math in relation to life skill such as navigation and hunting, whereas my experience of mathematics in school focused on how this math may be needed in a work setting, with a huge focus on the numbers alone (instead of their purpose in our everyday lives). I really appreciated how this article opened my perspective to how math is taught in different communities, and it has definitely encouraged me to stay vigilant for potential ignorance surrounding my understanding of essential teachings.