Week 9 – ECS 210 Blog Post

In math classes in school I remember them only being taught one way. The classes only really benefitted people who thought in a certain way which made it very difficult for me. I was okay at math but it would take me a lot longer to understand certain units and often I had to ask my friends for help. I found that some of my friends could explain it in a way that made more sense to me. The teacher was relatively old and had been teaching for many years so I think that he fell into a pattern of teaching math classes the same way each time. Because of this, I relied a lot on my friends and YouTube videos to explain the concepts to me in a way that I could understand.

I found that in a lot of instances in math, I wouldn’t be able to understand the concept unless there was a formula that went along with it and told me exactly how and when to use it. If there wasn’t a formula I would create my own. This was really useful and allowed me to excel. However, my limited success was mostly thanks to my friends and my own effort. I think that how math was taught at my school was a bit discriminatory towards students who struggled with math or were different kinds of learners. I think that math classes at my school valued students who could understand on the first try, with no other explanation or way of thinking about it. The rest of us were sort of left behind.

My teacher did offer help and he gave up his lunch hours to help students, which I used on occasion, but often I found he would just re-explain the concept in the same way he had said it in class. This helped me sometimes but other times I felt lost and dumb for not understanding.

After reading the Poirier article I realized the variations of mathematics and how it is not necessarily a universal language. Something that really stuck out to me is how Inuit students learn math in their native language for the first few years of school and then switch to English or French math. I found this really surprising and I can imagine that it would be difficult to make that transition. Especially since all the basics of math are taught in those first few years and then they would have to switch to a completely different language.

It’s interesting how numbers are different in Inuit culture. The number translations allow for an interesting perspective on numbers and which numbers hold value. It’s also interesting to note how the number 20 and the number 400 are so important in Inuit culture. I also found it interesting that the number 1 translates to indivisible which I can imagine would be very confusing for students.

Another way that Inuit math challenges and is different from Eurocentric math is that the number system is a base 20 numeral system. In addition to this, Inuit students don’t really see how Eurocentric math is to be used in their daily lives because their understanding of math works for their lifestyle. I think that colonization is really evident when you look at the type of math that is required of schools and the knowledge of other forms of math. I didn’t know that there was another way to view math and I think that it’s really interesting.

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