On "Mathematics as Medicine" & "Balancing Equations and Culture"

Article A: Doolittle (Canada): Mathematics as Medicine (in Proceedings of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG) 2006, pp. 17-25).

Edward Doolittle from the University of Regina is a mathematician and a Mohawk Indian who grew up in the suburbs of Hamilton, Ontario, knowing almost nothing of his indigenous culture before attending the University of Toronto. He was connected with indigenous traditions upon participating in an Indian Health Careers Program, a program designed to help to increase the representation of Aboriginal people in medicine and other health-related careers. From there, he started to seek efficient research methods to help mathematics education for indigenous people.

He is skeptical that quantitative research efforts, such as quantifying or justifying assessments with standardized outcome, can have fruitful results. Doolittle argued that these approaches would not be able to offer adequate solutions as the complexity of the situation seems to be beyond the capacity of any research which tends to offer simple responses to a complex question.

Ethnomathematics is a mean of addressing the interactions between math thinking and cultural beliefs, and the presenter found it far more reflective and respectful to Indigenous traditions of thought. However, he reminded researchers to be aware of the tendency of oversimplifying the inquiry such as saying “The tipi is a cone”. Another two pieces of advice include using culture-appropriate language and words that blend in with the indigenous language when introducing mathematics terms, and respecting indigenous spiritual traditions by trying to view mathematics as a power of medicine from the perspective of it connecting lives and making us better people.

Article B: b) Doolittle & Glanfield (2007): Balancing Equations and Culture: Indigenous Educators Reflect on Mathematics Education. FLM, pp. 27-30.

In this conversation between Doolittle and Florence Glanfield, two aboriginal mathematics educators, several issues relating to perspectives on the value of mathematics were discussed.

1. Doolittle elaborated on a story in which a boy came back to his camp with a strange animal, a horse. The boy showed his people how to make use of and keep a good relationship with the horse. The horse became an asset to the camp and the boy later became the chief. Doolittle raised the question of whether math can be as useful as the horse, or would it rather be a Trojan horse which might actually cause huge loss to the camp.
2. Florence was concerned about the power of mathematics which she felt that she benefitted from, but was not able to be distributed equally to her tribe. She recognized that there was a division and barrier between “the secret mathematics society” and the mass public.
3. Doolittle asked the question of whether mathematics is universally powerful or only has power in western contexts. He was skeptical that many requirements for math in the job market were just arbitrary and did not serve a real purpose.
4. Florence believed many pre-service teachers were not offered opportunities to explore relationships within math. They were “silenced” in their early formal years in expressing their ideas about math notions and relationships.
5. Doolittle found that the aboriginal perception of relationships was not compatible with mainstream relationships presented in math. He was concerned that current prevailing school mathematics might force aboriginal people to give up their natural and innate mathematical understanding of the world.

They both believed a balanced approach towards math from the lens of aboriginal culture. Mind, body, emotion and spirituality can be most promising to help both aboriginal people and math society.

Reflection: :

A sample used to illustrate the complexity of mathematics in indigenous society  is the following,

Q: If he gets four dollars a day, how many is he going to have in two days?

A: Six.

Although the answer appears wrong at first glance, there are more subtle ethnic implications behind the answer. For example, if a labourer were to work for two days and was told that they were to receive 4 dollars each day, but only ended up receiving 6 dollars in total, this question would be treated as “real math” and the answer would end up being a reflection on reality. One reason that “street math” is not a major chapter of our current curricula is that “street math” is more of a personal or group interpretation of a phenomenon with minimum abstraction and lack of ability of generalization. Of course this is against some of the perception of math and its value. Since we have limited the term of math to the western context, I kind of feel some new names should be introduced to recognize the different “original math” base on its culture roots.   

Question: 

In teaching current school math curricula, have you experienced any hesitation, resistance or conflict due to cultural differencecs?