What math do you see? I challenged a group of high school math teachers to look at this picture of my niece proudly holding a mud pie she had made at the age of 8. At first, it seemed like a simple childhood creation, but then we started to talk about symmetry, patterns, topology and concentric circle and high school math constructs - as many as we could recall from our training. Before long we pondered, 'What is an 8-year old doing creating magnificent iterations of high school mathematics? And why was it hidden from us?' This professional learning moment resonated: All children create powerful worlds that we can unlock with 'mathematics' - if and only if, we can suspend our assumptions and predispositions to school math.
Every child has a mathematical world to explore, rich with experiences, activities, and insights that are deeply connected to the communities they belong to. Whether it’s the designs they make in nature, the patterns they incorporate, the reasoning with family, the calculations or the problem-solving involved in navigating daily tasks, these worlds are filled with mathematical potential. By tapping deeply into these personal and cultural experiences, we can help students understand math as a tool for exploring, understanding, and shaping their world.
Every student’s mathematical world is deeply rooted in their culture, community, and identity. By recognizing and exploring the math that emerges from these worlds, we can make mathematics more engaging, relevant, and empowering. Here are three practical ways to immerse yourself in these rich, culturally grounded mathematical experiences:
Begin by immersing yourself in the real-world experiences of your students by observing or participating in a cultural, community, or family event. Pay close attention to the activities, interactions, and tasks happening around you. Whether it’s a family gathering, a local celebration, or a community event, look for the ways in which people use math naturally—through measurements, patterns, budgeting, or problem-solving or debating.
Begin by immersing yourself in the real-world experiences of your students by observing or participating in a cultural, community, or family event. Pay close attention to the activities, interactions, and tasks happening around you. Whether it’s a family gathering, a local celebration, or a community event, look for the ways in which people use math naturally—through measurements, patterns, budgeting, or problem-solving or debating.
The LAST step is to build opportunities for students to connect their cultural math experiences with school math curriculum. The key is to transpose shared experiences from students and their communities as critical points for engaging formal school math concepts.
Introduce technical vocabulary, algorithms and constructs alongside cultural thinking and practices, and the math embedded within, showing students that the math they experience in their lives is often connected to the math they learn in school.
For example, after discussing how leaves grow to maximize sunlight (a la Step 2), you might transition the concept of symmetry or having students notice angles in plant growth patterns, connecting this observation to geometry in the curriculum.
At InspireMath, we are doing this work with teacher cohorts around the country. Interested in learning more? Email us at institute@inspiremath.org
