Decolonizing Our Imaginations: Community Gardens, Living Mathematx, and Dialogic Spirals in an Elementary Mathematics Methods Course

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: Current Issues in Postcolonial Studies and Education

Abstract

This trio auto-ethnographic study of mathematics teacher educators in an elementary mathematics methods course for pre-service teachers highlights the role community gardens play in critically noticing the limits teacher educators place on their own imagination when teaching mathematics. Data sources included fieldnotes, multimedia blog posts, and reflective conversation. The theoretical framework is rooted in indigenous ways of knowing: living Mathematx, the dialogic spiral, and critical mathematics teacher noticing. The results reveal that the garden mediated the opening of imagination by decolonizing the teaching of mathematics. Implications to this study underscore the garden’s influence in interconnecting community and school, enabling the researchers and students to humanize mathematics by cultivating authentic mathematics stories outside their own initial assumptions of where mathematics lives.

Authors

• Youmna Deiri, Texas A&M International University

• Joanne Baltazar Vakil, The Ohio State University

• Theodore Chao, The Ohio State University