ECS 203 Blog Post #12

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, supressing 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?

Part 2: 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 think back to my own personal experiences of getting taught and learning about mathematics, I think about how in my grade four class we had a split class so it was technically a three/four split, and another teacher had another three/four split. We use to split up our math classes by grade, so the grade three’s would go with my teacher, and I went with the other teacher. Kids who struggled in our grade four math class were sent over to the grade three-room and taught by that teacher instead. Me, at the time I thought this was normal because I was younger, but looking back now I see that my teachers were kind of being discriminatory over the students who were not learning or comprehending fast enough. If I was the teacher in that position, I would’ve offered more support and resources rather than shipping them off to a different teacher, all because “you don’t want other students to fall behind too.” I also felt while I was growing up none of my mathematics classrooms were culturally inclusive, for example, we stuck to learning the Canadian way of doing math, strictly following curriculum guidelines. We never incorporated Indigenous Ways of Knowing or even just other cultures who have different ways of doing math or different practices. I honestly learned how to count to twenty in Spanish from watching Dora, rather than within my education system at any point.

Inuit mathematics is different from Eurocentric ways of teaching, for example, students who learn both Inuit and Eurocentric mathematics will be learning different types of numeral systems. Inuit mathematics uses the base-20 numeral system whereas Eurocentric uses a different type. The two are separate and distinct. Another challenge is how different their guidelines for learning are compared to the Eurocentric curriculum. For example, the article it says, “ These six domains seem necessary for the development of mathematical knowledge, even if each different culture has its own way of dealing with them” (Page 56). Which I think shows how different Inuit mathematics are compared to Eurocentric or any other culture within the world. Finally, another way in which Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas about the purposes of mathematics and the way we learn it is how the Inuit use a traditional calendar where the days of the month change based on certain events like when the caribou antlers lose their velvet. Whereas, in Eurocentric mathematics, we have a standard calendar where the days don’t change unless it is a leap year. Eurocentric ways and Inuit ways are different, but both teach mathematics effectively and have guidelines for teachers to follow to teach their students and learners effectively.