Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students
Ch. 1: Toward Indigenous Making and Sharing: Implications for Mathematics Learning
By Filiberto Barajas-López and Megan Bang
Why?
Commitment to anti-racism
Commitment to action
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Acknowledgement
“...under certain conditions, rehumanizing mathematics could be considered a form of decolonizing mathematics, but only when issues of land, sovereignty, and erasure of culture and language are taken seriously.” p.4
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Land Acknowledgement
Native-land.ca
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Chapter 1
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Question 1:
There are so many rich quotes to discuss in
“Ch. 1: Toward Indigenous Making and Sharing: Implications for Mathematics Learning.”
What is your golden sentence? Why?
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Chapter 1
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Question 2:
Ethnomathematics has made explicit the relationship between culture and the development of mathematics by countering the commonly held and false assumption that mathematics is universal and culture free (D’Ambrosio 1985)” (p. 14).
In your experience, what are some examples of how math has been falsely assumed to be universal and culture free? What are some ways that we might value and highlight the way in which mathematics is a cultural activity?
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Chapter 1
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Question 3:
“Indigenous youth remarked that engaging in clay making, in the same form as their ancestors had done, gave them a greater sense of responsibility for maintaining strong cultural ties through Indigenous-based making activities. From our perspective, we interpreted this [clay-making] to mean that the making and observational practices represented a resurgent and humanizing form of contributing to the physical and spiritual well-being of their own communities” (p. 18-19).
How can we as educators engage students in activities that meaningfully connect them with cultural ways of being and doing in math?
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Chapter 1
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Question 4:
Chapter 1 describes “pedagogies of walking, observing, and talking about lands and waters as the foundations in making activities” (p. 13). Based on what you read, what changes will you make in your practice?
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Chapter 1
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@CAMathCouncil
#cmcmath
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Question 5:
“We begin with erasure because any conversation about equity in society, the world, education, or mathematics education needs to be situated as part of an ongoing historical, political and social context, or, in the case of Indigenous people, the project of settler colonialism (Wolfe 2006)” (p. 13).
What efforts need to be made or are currently being made in your education context or your life to counteract erasure of Indigenous people?
Chapter 1
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@CAMathCouncil
#cmcmath
Question 6:
The authors contrast the interrelated nature of an Indigenous knowledge system with the school-based western conception of separate academic domains. Describe how your mathematical experiences fit within these two different conceptions of learning.
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.
Chapter 1
11
@CAMathCouncil
#cmcmath
Question 7:
What are your personal and/or systemic takeaways
from this chapter? Based on what you’ve read,
what changes will you make in your practice and why?
Goffney, I., & Gutierrez, R. (Eds.). (2018). Rehumanizing Mathematics for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Students. Reston, Virginia: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc.