Decolonizing Mathematics Instruction: Subordinating Teaching to Learning

Abstract

Western European nations and the United States have significantly shaped the contemporary world through brutal and devious colonialist and imperialist ventures. Though those endeavors are different, they share common features. Those features include the economic, political, social, and cultural domination stretched over time of territories beyond the geographic boundaries of metropolitan centers to benefit the metropole's ruling classes and their populations. Vladimir. I. Lenin (1939) views colonialism and imperialism hierarchically, whereby the latter is an advanced stage of the former and the final stage of capitalism.Contrastingly, the Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said (1993), distinguishes between imperialism and colonialism by stating, "imperialism involved 'the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory,' while colonialism refers to the 'implanting of settlements on a distant territory'" (SAID, 1993, p. 9). Gilmartin (2009) summaries the British postcolonial theorist Robert J.C. Young's distinction as "imperialism is primarily a concept, and colonialism is primarily a practice" (GILMARTIN, 2009, p. 115).However, contrasted with imperialism, colonialism has been a project of economic and territorial control whereby, to effectuate dominance, the colonizer imposes its religion, language, and other cultural practices.

Drama-Based Pedagogy: Ways of Engaging in Mathematics Learning

“…It creates a learning environment in which students their collaborative skills through role-playing in which every character of the drama cooperatively builds and enhances their characters in which both actors and audiences immerse in the situations, and thus, they internalize the contents demonstrated (Coleman & Davies, 2018). Mathematics education practices from the very beginning of formal schooling in Nepal around 1834 have been dominated by the competitive mentality that has been instigated by Western modern worldview and focuses on high-stakes tests that help erode collaborative culture emanating through historical practices of our ancestors (Powell, 2022). Competition is not the aim of education that enhances the individualistic endeavour and leads practitioners to be more narcissistic and self-indulgent, which indirectly insists on unhealthy conflict in society and nation as well.…”

Institutional and instructional decolonizing mathematics education

“…High-stakes tests and other assessments also exert an influence. Powell (2022) cites the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an arm of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as a neocolonialist and neoliberal assessment project that internationally shapes school mathematics curriculum and instruction.…”