Mathematics

Throughout elementary and high school, I was never one who excelled at math but I also didn’t fail at math either. I was average at it. I really disliked math because I felt that I wasn’t very good at it. That being said, I can’t think of a time in any math class that was oppressive or discriminating. However, math was very by the book. There was always an emphasis on showing your work as you did it. Math always seemed to just be taught a certain way. I always thought there was not more ways to teach math or to even incorporate different things into a math class. Also, myself and a few others were always the students who needed extra explanation on a math concept. Other students understood and grasped the concepts right away. Throughout my whole schooling all my math teachers were very helpful and spent time helping us understand before, during, or after class. It didn’t matter the level everyone was at; the teachers took time to help everyone out.

            Three ways that Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas about mathematic purposes and the way it is learnt are counting, measuring, and localization. With counting, Inuit children learn to count in their language and then later will be taught English or French and will learn mathematics in that language they will be learning. Inuit children learn their numbers orally and do not have symbols for their numbers. With measuring, the Inuit people use body parts for measurement purposes versus devices to measure things. Also, the Inuit used a different calendar, their traditional calendar. This traditional calendar is not like a typical calendar with months named like May, June, July, etc. This traditional calendar goes off of natural events that occur annually in nature. As discussed in the article, one example of this is that the month of May would be “when baby caribou are born” (pg.61). Localization refers to “the exploration of one’s spatial environment and the symbolization of that environment with the help of models, diagrams, drawings, words, or other means” (pg. 56).

Reference: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1080%2F14926150709556720.pdf

2 Comments

  1. gillian surkan

    I agree that math has always been taught in certain ways. Unlike other subjects, math was strict with following a textbook. I was also one of those people who would consider themselves average at math. How do you think others who had lower grades in math felt compared to the ones who got higher grades? Do you feel that some might be praised more in the classroom than others or receive more attention? How does the attitude of the teacher change when they are speaking to a student who exceeds in math compared to a student with lower grades?

  2. Marissa Taylor

    I had a similar experience with learning mathematics as you. Our class was always structured in a certain way that was very product-based. The students that were the ones that were oppressed were those who didn’t learn like the majority of students or had difficulty understanding English.

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