Search

We give an unconventional, mythopoetic response to the question of Why teach mathematics to all learners in school? In our work with pre-service teachers, we attempt to teach how to value the vulnerability of the multispecies world in a relational, anti-colonial way through passionate immersion, and to use mathematics education towards the ends of promoting its and our own (human) flourishing through taking on relationships of curatorial care. Our contribution includes the novel theoretical assemblage and elaboration of the metaphors of plot and curating as "medicine" [Doolittle, E. (2007). Mathematics as medicine -- plenary lecture. In P. Liljedahl (Ed.), "Proceedings of the 2006 CMESG Annual Meeting (17-25), Burnaby, BC, Canada."] for addressing challenging ethical questions for mathematics education [Karrow, D., Khan, S., & Fleener, Y. (2017). Mathematics education's ethical relation with and response to climate change. "Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal," 32 (Special Issues on Mathematics Education and the Living World: Responses to Ecological Crisis). ISBN: 1465-2978.] of its ongoing relationship with the precarity produced by unexamined plantation commitments.

Copyright of Alberta Journal of Educational Research is the property of Alberta Journal of Educational Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I introduce the ideas of Sylvia Wynter, in particular, her concepts of "Man" and "After Man." I argue that the M in STEM is implicated in this discursive assemblage, which traces a lineage back to the political economy of mathematics that emerged during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and which is related to plantation economics and logics of underdevelopment. I provide a description of this logic and attempt to unsettle the privileged position of human beings in thinking of an ethics for Mathematics Education. I propose that the M in STEM be oriented towards a goal of "multispecies' flourishing" and an ethics of kinship, which involves structural coupling and partnering with other species. I illustrate some first steps with student curations of their experience of learning to teach mathematics and with my own photographs and experiments in honouring the challenge of this work.

In this paper, we consider multiple sites of disenchantment and re-enchantment in assessment practice through the use of dialogue, reflection and speculative writing. We contend that this reflexive speculative approach enables us to dream first and negotiate later our future assessment practices. We argue that assessment systems in teacher education are part of a plantation infrastructure and discuss the many ways in which current standards of assessment in teacher education are disenchanting. These disenchantments lay the groundwork for the use of a speculative approach in provoking more positively daring imaginations for assessment. We present our tripartite fractal model for assessment practice, viz., holism, multiplicity and shared responsibility, as an example of re-enchantment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this theoretical paper, we argue that Variation Theory (VT) and Ethnomathematics (EM) form a necessary and mutually enriching partnership that simultaneously advances multiple goals such as those aligned with equitable outcomes for diverse learners, cultural relevance, cultural respect and humanizing mathematics education. We argue that the external horizon of the object of learning is a critical aspect of the ongoing evolution of relevance and motivational for learning mathematics. The lives of mathematical objects of learning that are embedded in cultural practices should maintain a balanced relationship between their ongoing cultural aspects and mathematical aspects. Variation theory also provides an important frame for the design of systematically sequenced and structured patterns of critical discernments that attend to the pedagogical dimension of ethnomathematics within schools and other settings. We illustrate our ideas through the example of the practice of kolam drawing, which originates in Tamil Nadu, India, and has been previously explored in the EM literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we witness a push toward studying spatial reasoning as a principal component of mathematical competency and instruction in the twenty first century, we argue that enactivism, with its strong and explicit foci on the coupling of organism and environment, action as cognition, and sensory motor coordination provides an inclusive, expansive, apt, and fit framework. We illustrate the fit of enactivism as a theory of learning with data from an ongoing research project involving teachers and elementary-aged children's engagement in the design and assembly of motorized robots. We offer that spatial reasoning with its considerations of physical context, the dynamics of a body moving through space, sensorimotor coordination, and cognition, appears different from other conceptual competencies in mathematics. Specifically, we argue that learner engagements with diverse types of informationally "dense" visuo-spatial interfaces (e.g., blueprints, programming icons, blocks, maps), as in the research study, afford some of the necessary experiences with/in a vast number of cases described by Varela et al. (1991) that enable the development of other mathematical competencies.

I argue that until ethnomathematical frameworks are explicitly used to investigate the specific mathematical practices in networks of powerful elites the term will continue to index that which is Other to "traditional" mathematics and run a risk of desubstantialization. I suggest that the field ally itself with disciplines and perspectives in which the imagination is central, such as mythopoetics, in order to address these risks. Further, I claim that ethnomathematics has been a mythopoetic endeavour involved in demythologizing and demystifying dominant discourses of mathematics and mathematics education and propose that there is need now for greater attention to mindful remythologizing.

* BACKGROUND Effects of postoperative depression on recovery from coronary artery bypass grafting have not been widely studied. * OBJECTIVES To evaluate emotional and physical recovery after bypass surgery and [...]

Hormone replacement therapy may not reduce the risk of a heart attack in postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease, according to a seven-year study of 2,321 women. This study was a continuation of the Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study (HERS), which found an increased risk of heart attack in hormone users the first year after starting hormone therapy, but a decreased risk in the following years., Context: The Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study (HERS) found no overall reduction in risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events among postmenopausal women with CHD. However, in the hormone group, findings did suggest a higher risk of CHD events during the first year, and a decreased risk during years 3 to 5. Objective: To determine if the risk reduction observed in the later years of HERS persisted and resulted in an overall reduced risk of CHD events with additional years of follow-up. Design and Setting: Randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial of 4.1 years' duration (HERS) and subsequent unblinded follow-up for 2.7 years (HERS II) conducted at outpatient and community settings at 20 US clinical centers. Participants: A total of 2763 postmenopausal women with CHD and average age of 67 years at enrollment in HERS; 2321 women (93% of those surviving) consented to follow-up in HERS II. Intervention: Participants were randomly assigned to receive 0.625 mg/d of conjugated estrogens and 2.5 mg of medroxyprogesterone acetate (n = 1380), or placebo (n = 1383) during HERS; open-label hormone therapy was prescribed at personal physicians' discretion during HERS II. The proportions with at least 80% adherence to hormones declined from 81% (year 1) to 45% (year 6) in the hormone group, and increased from 0% (year 1) to 8% (year 6) in the placebo group. Main Outcome Measures: The primary outcome was nonfatal myocardial infarction and CHD death. Secondary cardiovascular events were coronary revascularization, hospitalization for unstable angina or congestive heart failure, nonfatal ventricular arrhythmia, sudden death, stroke or transient ischemic attack, and peripheral arterial disease. Results: There were no significant decreases in rates of primary CHD events or secondary cardiovascular events among women assigned to the hormone group compared with the placebo group in HERS, HERS II, or overall. The unadjusted relative hazard (RH) for CHD events in HERS was 0.99(95% confidence interval [Cl], 0.81-1.22); HERS II, 1.00(95% Cl, 0.77-1.29); and overall, 0.99 (0.84-1.17). The overall RHs were similar after adjustment for potential confounders and differential use of statins between treatment groups (RH, 0.97; 95% Cl, 0.82-1.14), and in analyses restricted to women who were adherent to randomized treatment assignment (RH, 0.96; 95% Cl, 0.77-1.19). Conclusions: Lower rates of CHD events among women in the hormone group in the final years of HERS did not persist during additional years of follow-up. After 6.8 years, hormone therapy did not reduce risk of cardiovascular events in women with CHD. Postmenopausal hormone therapy should not be used to reduce risk for CHD events in women with CHD.

In this paper we introduce an ethical framework for teaching elementary mathematics, "Mathematics for Multispecies' Flourishing" (M4MSF). We have used the framework as a thematic and organizing principle for a 400 level optional course, Issues in Elementary Mathematics Education, that we designed and facilitated in Winter 2020 for pre-service teachers. We draw upon Mathematician Francis Su (2020) who has promoted the idea of doing mathematics as a route to human flourishing and Psychologist Martin Seligman's (2011) PERMA theory of well-being. We also draw upon Donna Haraway's (2016) notions of making kin once again with our multispecies relatives in order to extend a right to flourish from humans as an exception to all species as a norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]