Aboriginal children as powerful mathematicians

All Aboriginal children experience mathematics in their games and the play they encounter within their families. Often these experiences are not acknowledged as mathematics, but the children are certainly developing mathematical knowledge and learning about concepts that are relevant and connected to their everyday lives. The mathematics taught at school is often met in a much more structures and formal way, and is often not seen by Aboriginal children as relevant to their everyday living. This can cause a disjuncture between the mathematics taught in school and the mathematics used by Aboriginal children as they go about their daily lives. The task for teachers is to make mathematics in school relevant, purposeful and connected to the lives of Aboriginal children. In this chapter we consider how Aboriginal children learn mathematics outside school and how they are taught mathematics at school. One of the significant challenegs for both teachers and Aboriginal children is how to reconcile these different, and sometimes contadictory points of view. This chapter addresses some of the key issues that teachers must consider when structuring mathematics learning activities for Aboriginal children.