Decolonizing Our Imaginations: Community Gardens, Living Mathematx, and Cultivating Equitable Education in Mathematics Methods Courses

• In Event: Equity and Criticality in Mathematics Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper draws on a duo auto-ethnographic study of teacher educators in a mathematics methods course examining the role community gardens play as an intersectional space that connects learning, community engagement, and schools. Data sources included fieldnotes, multimedia blog posts, video recorded meetings, and reflective conversations. The theoretical framework is rooted in living Mathematx and critical mathematics teacher noticing. Findings underscore the garden’s influence in pushing the researchers to humanize mathematics by cultivating authentic mathematics stories outside their own initial assumptions. Implications highlighted how community gardens can mediate explicit conversations that make visible the limits we place on our own imaginations, as teacher educators, thus encouraging the reimagination of mathematics education rooted in systemic racial, economic and social equity.

Authors

• Youmna Deiri, Texas A&M International University

• Joanne Baltazar Vakil, The Ohio State University