• Part 1: At the beginning of the reading, Leroy Little Bear (2000) states that colonialism “tries to maintain a singular social order by means of force and law, suppressing the diversity of human worldviews. … Typically, this proposition creates oppression and discrimination” (p. 77). 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? I don’t think that there were aspects of mathematics that discriminated against me or were oppressive. I am someone who struggles in math, but I always had teachers willing to help and put in the extra time if I had a good attitude and level of determination. I grew up in Canada with the understanding of a base ten system, and I suppose it wasn’t until taking a Math Class at the First Nation’s Univeristy that I was aware of other base systems. We learned about Indigenous cultures that used the webbing between fingers to count (a base 4 system) instead of a base 10, counting on fingers. So maybe someone else who arrived from a different cultural background would find feelings of oppression and discrimination in math.  

Part 2: After reading Poirier’s article: Teaching mathematics and the Inuit Community, identify at least three ways in which Inuit mathematics challenge Eurocentric ideas about the purposes of mathematics and the way we learn it.

First thing that stood out to me was that for the first 3 years of schooling, they had mathematics delivered orally in Inuktitut. Second thing that stood out was how “they don’t preserve mathematics as something that will help them solve everyday problems”, but more a social construct and spacial awareness.  Another is that they do not use the base 10 system, but instead a base 20 system.