Pedagogical Listening: Rehumanizing Mathematics by Decentering Talk and Listening for Humanity

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Strategies and Tools for Supporting the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics

Abstract

What does it mean to be heard and why does it matter for learning mathematics? We conceptualize the rehumanization of mathematics through the lens of teacher as listener. The work of rehumanizing mathematics with students who have been underserved by a system that has been engineered by and for dominant culture, requires a shift in understanding what it means to teach and learn mathematics. We contend this change requires a recentering from a focus on talk to a focus on listening. Teachers who have a pedagogy of listening that goes beyond listening for “the right answer” to listening for the voices, identities, understandings and resources of previously silenced voices support children, through their humanity, to make mathematics their own.

Authors

• Kersti Tyson, University of New Mexico

• Allison Beth Hintz, University of Washington - Bothell

• Andrea R. English, University of Edinburgh