Decolonising Mathematics Education

Book excerpt: First Peoples living in remote Australia are educated in two worlds. The future of bush food enterprises in outstations in Utopia depends on the successful transfer of intergenerational knowledge. High school girls respectfully inquire about how to harvest and process important cultural materials from country. Students, senior women and young men strengthen their connections to self, kinship and culture and share responsibility to care for country. Careful collaboration with First Nations people creates opportunities to provide mathematics education which complements and is informed by the work that already exists in the local school community. Consultation with assistant teachers, students, and other community members creates opportunities to validate Indigenous pedagogies in mathematics education. Decolonising Mathematics Education explores and responds to student interest in managing and harvesting akatyerr (desert raisin). Transforming pedagogy enables the students to respond more broadly to the needs of Utopia Eastern Anmatyerr and Alyawarr people to price and sell this important bush food. Income generated from the enterprise is modest, however the skills of a small start-up business have been applied to many learning opportunities that exist in the local community.