id: 06083510
dt: a
an: 2012e.00257
au: Were, Graeme
ti: From the known to the unknown: pattern, mathematics and learning in Papua
    New Guinea.
so: Forgasz, Helen (ed.) et al., Towards equity in mathematics education.
    Gender, culture, and diversity. Berlin: Springer (ISBN
    978-3-642-27701-6/hbk; 978-3-642-27702-3/ebook). Advances in
    Mathematics Education, 415-428 (2012).
py: 2012
pu: Berlin: Springer
la: EN
cc: C60 D30 A30
ut: mathematics curriculum; Papua New Guinea; cultural traditions; mathematics
    learning; patterns
ci: 
li: doi:10.1007/978-3-642-27702-3_38
ab: Summary: During the late 1990s, the Papua New Guinean Department of
    Education introduced a new elementary school mathematics curriculum
    that utilised the country’s rich and diverse cultural traditions. The
    resulting changes saw patterns, one of a family of practices related to
    the decorative arts, take on a prominent role as a tool for
    understanding number, space, time, measurement, all of which form the
    basis of mathematics. Drawing primarily on the author’s own
    anthropological fieldwork, this chapter examines the culture of pattern
    in community life in order to understand its selection as a cultural
    resource for mathematics learning. It will demonstrate that while
    pattern is not spoken about, people are nevertheless especially adept
    at engaging with it. Since Papua New Guinea is full of patterns, and
    pattern plays such a robust role in the mathematics curriculum, the
    chapter demonstrates how pattern can be understood as an expression of
    the mathematical mind at work.
rv: