Week Six

 

Part 1 (Numeracy): Using Gale’s lecture, Poirier’s article, and Bear’s article, identify at least three ways in which Inuit mathematics challenges Eurocentric ideas about the purpose of mathematics and the way we learn it.

  • In Gale's lecture (and Bear's article), we see this quote from Little Leroy Bear: "Colonialism tries to maintain a singular social order by means of force and law, suppressing the diversity of human worldviews..." (2000, p. 77). Eurocentric mathematic views are pretty structured, and there's very little room to make mathematics flexible to interpretations as opposed to philosophies. Gale mentioned the story about the sheep herder and the researchers. Both sides had different opinions on that trading situation, and while I agree the researchers make sense mathematically, the sheep herder's point challenged counting sheep and seeing values one-dimensionally. 
  • Bear's article talks about how Indigenous languages are aimed at describing "happenings" rather than objects and how dichotomies aren't used in these languages. Bear says, "Aboriginal philosophy as being holistic and cyclical or repetitive, generalist, process-oriented, and firmly grounded in a particular place." They focus on the spirits of things, and their mathematics revolves around the cycles and patterns of the Earth. 
  • Poirier's articles taught me more about how the Inuit approached mathematics. I learned that they started learning mathematics young, expressed numbers orally, and while they borrowed some numbers and symbols from Europeans, the Inuit have a base-20 system with words/numbers that depended on context. They have a more complex process of describing situations, as I've seen through the position of the inukshuk. 

Part 2 (Literacy): Which “single stories” were present in your schooling? Whose truth mattered? What biases and lenses do you bring to the classroom? How might we unlearn/work against these biases?

Reading this week's Kumashiro chapter, I learned the importance of stories we read now that aren't just classic literature. In my experience, I've read countless books during school: dystopian, Shakespearean, racism-related, and more. These texts are intended to make students absorb different views and experience things beyond what's happening around them. I read this one book called The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison which was centered around the life and community of Pecola, an abused young African-American girl. Stories such as this book are true somewhere in the world, and they address real current issues. I honestly didn't think about the difference between "about racism" and "against racism" so that was something I was glad to learn. There's the issue of biases and lenses between teachers and students. Kumashiro talks about how teachers and students of color won't necessarily connect better because they have more identities than that of their racial background. Bias because of race or privilege is something I don't want in my classroom. I think assumptions should be avoided, and we should get to know all students respectfully and equally. 

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