Abstract
A mathematics lesson in a school recently moved to new, cyclone-proofed buildings at the top of a hill behind the Yolngu Aboriginal settlement of Yirrkala in the far northeast of Australia’s Northern Territory. The teacher, Mandawuy Yunupingu, a young man in his final year of BA(Ed) studies, is set to become, in 1989, the first Aboriginal school principal in Australia. He has chosen to teach this lesson in the school hall, which doubles as a basketball court. He wanted a space not cluttered by school desks. Watching an edited excerpt of a video (Yirrkala Community School, 1996c) of this lesson in 1998, I am struck again by the certainty that Mandawuy and his pupils evince over the subject matter of this lesson, It is a certainty arising from familiarity. The children, learning the details of the system of rules being presented to them, are certain enough to ask questions. Familiarity with the subject matter can be seen clearly in the body language — the postures, the ease of the interactions — even if sometimes the correct answers escape the children. The edited fragment of this lesson begins with Mandawuy seated on the concrete floor of the school hall — an open, roofed area — and the children grinning in delight, sitting around him in a circle.
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Verran, H. (2000). Logics and Mathematics: Challenges Arising in Working Across Cultures. In: Selin, H. (eds) Mathematics Across Cultures. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4301-1_5
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