Reading Response 9:
When I think back to mathematics, I was taught growing up, I do not remember any diversity in the way we learned. Other cultures ways of knowing or doing was never brought into the way we were taught. From kindergarten to grade three we worked on worksheets and little workbooks and grade four to twelve we had textbooks. I cannot remember our math textbooks having any signs of diversity in anything other than the standard Saskatchewan textbook way of learning. We say that math is universal however, mathematics is culturally biased, and it is never admitted.
There are several ways to think about and solve mathematical questions. I remember doing workbook questions and coming out with the right answer, but the progress of getting the answer was wrong. My teachers would disagree with my way of figuring out a question and say I was not doing math the ‘right way’. Now to think of it, even my first year in university I took a math class (math 101) and on the weekly quizzes, we got marks for doing the ‘right’ progress on the questions and then marks for if the answer was right or wrong. This always confused me, because I was told that there are several ways to problem solve, however my teachers contradicted themselves by not allowing a diversity of progress.
Growing up, I believed I was a mathematical person, until high school when the work became stricter and a lot harder. I then doubted myself and thought that I was not a math person and that I would probably never be one again. However, we are all mathematical people, as Gale pointed out in todays lecture “evidence proves that we think mathematically before we think linguistically.” That really surprised me and somehow gave me a new hope that I, along with many others are math people. Not only because evidence proves it, but also because “Mathematics is in everything, and everything is in mathematics” (Gale, PowerPoint). We are surrounded by math in our daily lives, that we do not even think twice about. Math is incorporated when we are watching Netflix but need to be studying and decide to keep watching because we only have a third of the show left. Math is incorporated when we finally do start to study and have a thirty-page article to read thinking ‘if I read 5 pages, that’s only 5 pages 6 times. Math is even incorporated in the commercials we watch, an example would be advertising that their product lasts 4x longer than others, or their food lowers cholesterol 2x longer. We are constantly doing and saying things that involve math and we do not even know it, it just happens.
Inuit worldviews are different than Eurocentric worldviews, even mathematically. The first way in which I noticed the Inuit view of mathematics was different was that they follow a base-20 numeral system whereas Eurocentric follow a base-10 numeral system. I did not even know that it was possible to count in different base units until my first year of university where I learned that we count in a base-10 numeral system. I was actually shocked to learn that other cultures or places in this world counted different, that is how sheltered and ignorant I was of diversity in mathematics. Gale mentioned in lecture that Inuit follow the base-20 system as they have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Another point I noticed when reading through the article was the way they represented numbers. Counting is done in a completely different way than Eurocentric. They represent numbers orally, there are not symbols that are used. Each number has a different meaning, context dependent, as their tradition and culture are oral focused. The next point that caught my eye was the way Inuit measure. They Measure by using parts of their body such as hands, arms and feet to figure out measurements.
Miss. Sinclair 