(Mathematics) Education That Doesn't Hurt

• In Event: 53.076 - What Should Be the "Mathematics" in Mathematics Education?

Abstract

It almost goes without saying that the field of mathematics education conceptualizes mathematics as a good. In other words, it is rare (impossible?) to find a mathematics education researcher who argues that we should not or need not teach mathematics to young people. Yet critical mathematics researchers have identified ways that mathematics itself can be used to do harm: mathematics is used to justify the reduction of social welfare benefits (Frankenstein, 1983); mathematics has developed weapons and practices that destroy the world’s environment (D’Ambrosio, 2012). And, mathematics education research provides overwhelming evidence that the way we provide mathematics education can provoke anxiety in children (Evans, Morgan, & Tsatsaroni, 2006), push them out of school (Lucas, 1999), and alienate them from their families and communities (Rodd & Bartholomew, 2006). In this presentation, I trouble the ways in which mathematics is represented as a positive force in the world, if only we could get the teaching right. To make this argument, I draw from a recent study of anti-austerity activists engaged in a campaign to prevent cuts to the City of Toronto budget (Author, 2014). In alignment with Skovsmose’s (2009) work on “critical professionalism” in mathematics and science education, the activists pushed back against several myths related to the use of mathematics in the political domain. Skovsmose argued that critical mathematics (education) professionals must be aware of three myths about modern mathematics: that mathematics 1) always contributes to progress, 2) is neutral, and 3) is epistemically transparent. Interviews with the activists provided evidence to support their awareness of these three myths. Furthermore, the activist interview data suggested three more myths of modern mathematics: 4) mathematical argumentation is objective and dispassionate, 5) mathematicians can weigh in productively on social issues simply by virtue of their mathematical expertise, and 6) mathematical analysis of social issues only has one interpretation and leads to one, definitively correct, solution. Finally, and most important for my argument, the activists maintained that politicians knew that these myths were widely accepted as truth, and capitalized on these beliefs to convince the public that they knew best. Ultimately, activists maintained that pro-austerity politicians used mathematics to further harm the city’s most oppressed residents. For the remainder of the presentation, I will share interview and ethnographic data that sheds some light on how some activists learned to question these six myths. I will invite the audience to consider what the ethnographic data suggests with regard to formal and informal mathematics education, for students and for future teachers. To summarize: Ample evidence suggests that current forms of mathematics education actually do harm to students’ emotional, intellectual, and material well being. This presentation, along with others in the symposium, ponders the challenges in developing a mathematics education that doesn’t hurt, and that instead supports individual, community, and global thriving.

Author

• Indigo Esmonde, University of Toronto - OISE