Part 1 (Numeracy): Using Gale’s lecture, Poirier’s article, and Bear’s article, identify at least three ways in which Inuit mathematics challenge Eurocentric ideas about the purpose of mathematics and the way we learn it.
The Eurocentric way of learning is very linear we are given, it is order of which it is to be done. Like a to do list you do them in order until you are done the list of duties.Meanwhile looking at it from a educational view we as teachers go through a list of outcomes and indicators. The Inuit‘s mathematical ideas are relationship-based that being explained as “cyclical“ (Bear,L. 2000) so instead of learning subjects in a linear order. The Inuit studies the deeper meaning of things like patterns and being able to link math into the bigger posture of things, situations and importance.
Eurocentric also teaches based on written content, that meaning worksheets, papers, etc. Meanwhile with the Inuit they focus on oral content, so how you tell a story or explain something to someone in great detail.
Lastly, the Eurocentric focus on the more mathematical benefit for them. Rather than with the Inuit each animal sold had it’s more spiritual connect with the land and was a valuable attribute. Meanwhile to the Europeans they were just a object with a price tag on them.
Part 2 (Literacy): Which “single stories” were present in your own schooling? Whose truth mattered? What biases and lenses do you bring to the classroom? How might we unlearn / work against these biases?
When I was in school being a ’good’ student was the key to success. This being because you would be the one to go to university and get a degree and be able to function in the real world. So called ‘bad’ or ‘ oh she’s just the same as her older siblings’ students were known not to succeed and go anywhere in life. I know that it may sound harsh but that’s how it was in my school. Thats how the teachers made it out to be. I feel as if it doesn’t matter who’s truth it is, it matters. No matter there academic ability, their upbringing, their gender, race or sexual. Everyones truth matters. I feel as if I might bring bias toward sexual pronouns, that just being because I don’t have much knowledge within that area.. I am hoping as I go through my teaching career I can gain more knowledge about that. Bear, L. L. (2000).Jagged worldviews colliding. In M. Batiste (Ed.),Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision (pp.77-85). UBC Press