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Critique As Uncertainty 1st Edition Ole Skovsmose
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Author(s): Ole Skovsmose
ISBN(s): 9781623967550, 1623967554
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 2.53 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Critique as Uncertainty
A Volume in:
Montana Mathematics Enthusiast: Monographs in Mathematics Education
Series Editor
Bharath Sriraman
Montana Mathematics Enthusiast:
Monographs in Mathematics Education
Series Editor
Bharath Sriraman
The University of Montana
Selected writings from the Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers’
Association: Celebrating 50 years (1962–2012) of delta-K (2014)
Edited by Egan J. Chernoff and Gladys Sterenberg
The Development of Teaching Expertise from an International Perspective (2013)
By Su Liang
Crossroads in the History of Mathematics and Mathematics Education (2012)
Edited by Bharath Sriraman
Interdisciplinarity for the 21st Century: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on
Mathematics and its connections to the Arts and Sciences, Moncton 2009 (2010)
Edited by Bharath Sriraman and Viktor Freiman
The Role of Mathematics Discourse in Producing Leaders of Discourse (2010)
By Libby Knott
Relatively and Philosophically Earnest:
Festschrift in honor of Paul Ernest’s 65th Birthday (2009)
Edited by Bharath Sriraman and Simon Goodchild
Critical Issues in Mathematics Education (2009)
Edited by Paul Ernest, Brian Greer, and Bharath Sriraman
Interdisciplinarity, Creativity, and Learning:
Mathematics with Literature, Paradoxes, History, Technology, and Modeling (2009)
Edited by Bharath Sriraman, Viktor Freiman, and Nicole Lirette-Pitre
Creativity, Giftedness, and Talent Development in Mathematics (2008)
Interdisciplinary Educational Research In Mathematics and
Its Connections to The Arts and Sciences (2008)
Edited by Bharath Sriraman, Claus Michelsen, Astrid Beckmann, and Viktor Freiman
Mathematics Education and the Legacy of Zoltan Paul Dienes (2008)
Beliefs and Mathematics:
Festschrift in honor of Guenter Toerner’s 60th Birthday (2007)
International Perspectives on Social Justice in Mathematics Education (2007)
Critique as Uncertainty
Ole Skovsmose
INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The CIP data for this book can be found on the Library of Congress website (loc.gov).
Paperback: 978-1-62396-753-6
Hardcover: 978-1-62396-754-3
eBook: 978-1-62396-755-0
Copyright © 2014 Information Age Publishing Inc.
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retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission
from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ......................................................................... vii

Introduction .................................................................................. ix
P A R T 1
WORKING WITH MATHEMATICS
1. Landscapes of Investigation ........................................................... 3

2. How to Drag with a Worn-Out Mouse? Searching for Social
Justice through Collaboration .......................................................21
Miriam Godoy Penteado and Ole Skovsmose
3. Project Work in Mathematics .........................................................37
4. Inquiry Gestures........................................................................... 45
Raquel Milani and Ole Skovsmose
P A R T 2
FOREGROUNDS AND POSSIBILITIES
5. Foregrounds and the Politics of Learning Obstacles ....................59

6. Justice, Foregrounds, and Possibilities..........................................73
7. Researching Foregrounds: About Motives and Conditions for
Learning ........................................................................................87
Denival Biotto Filho and Ole Skovsmose
v
vi • CONTENTS
8. Inclusion-Exclusion: An Explosive Problem................................. 95

Renato Marcone and Ole Skovsmose
9. Researching Possibilities ............................................................. 111
P A R T 3
DEMOCRACY AS A CHALLENGE
10. Ghettoizing and Globalization: A Challenge for Mathematics

Education .....................................................................................129
11. Linking Mathematics Education and Democracy: Citizenship,
Mathematical Archaeology, Mathemacy, and Deliberative
Interaction ...................................................................................143
12. Democratic Competence and Reflective Knowing in
Mathematics ................................................................................161
13. Mathematics Education and Democracy .....................................181
P A R T 4
MATHEMATICS AND POWER
14. Mathematics as Discourse ...........................................................199

15. Symbolic Power, Robotting, and Surveilling ...............................215
16. Can Facts Be Fabricated through Mathematics? .........................231
17. Mathematics as Part of Technology .............................................247
18. Reflective Knowledge: Its Relation to the Mathematical
Modeling Process ........................................................................263
P A R T 5
CRITICAL MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
19. Explosive Problems in Mathematics Education...........................283

20. Critique, Generativity, and Imagination .................................... 289
21. Beyond Postmodernity in Mathematics Education? ....................301
22. Modernity, Aporism, and Mathematics Education ...................... 317
23. Aporism and Critical Mathematics Education .............................333
24. Mathematics Education versus Critical Education ......................347
Name Index .................................................................................363
Subject Index ...............................................................................369
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank Bolema, Educational Studies in Mathematics, For the Learning

of Mathematics, Inter-American Conference on Mathematics Education, Inter-
national Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, Journal
for Mathematics Teacher Education, Nova Science Publishers, Peter Lang Inter-
national Academic Publishers, Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal,
Springer, and Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik (ZDM) for kind permis-
sion to include already published material in this book. In a note following each
previously published chapter I provide the reference to the original.
All these original publications have been accompanied by acknowledgments.
In this present book I do not repeat these acknowledgments, but again I do want to
thank everybody for their help and support: Helle Alrø, Bill Barton, Richard Bar-
well, Alan Bishop, Morten Blomhøj, Jo Boaler, Gunnar Bomann, Arindam Bose,
Laurinda Brown, Henning Bødtkjer, Iben Maj Christiansen, Paul Dowling, Lisser
Rye Ejersbo, Kathrine Krageskov Eriksen, Paul Ernest, Peter Gates, Núria Gor-
gorió, Brian Greer, Halfdan Grage, Susan Hart, Arne Astrup Juul, Anne Kepple,
Steve Lerman, Ruth Loshak, Kristina Brun Madsen, Klaus P. Mortensen, Marilyn
Nickson, Danny Martin, Pernille Pind, Núria Planas, Norma Presmeg, Ole Ravn,
Kenneth Ruthven, Jeppe Skott, Mikael Skånstrøm, Shikha Takker, Allan Tarp,
Paola Valero, Renuka Vithal, Tom Webb, Tine Wedege, and Keiko Yasukawa.
Critique As Uncertainty, pages vii–viii.

Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. vii
viii • CRITIQUE AS UNCERTAINTY
I want to thank Lucas Penteado for assisting in ensuring the many different
parts of the manuscript have a uniform format; Patricia Perry for the very careful
way she prepared the manuscript for publication; the Department of Learning and
Philosophy, Aalborg University for financial support for completing this publica-
tion; and Bharath Sriraman, the Montana Mathematics Enthusiast and Informa-
tion Age Publishing for making it all happen.
Finally I want to thank Denival Biotto Filho, Renato Marcone, Raquel Milani,
and Miriam Godoy Penteado for writing some chapters together with me and for
their collaboration in bringing this volume together. And many more thanks to
Miriam, my wife, for her support throughout this whole process.
Ole Skovsmose
—June, 2014
INTRODUCTION
The title of the book is Critique as Uncertainty, and it is a central part of my con-
cern here to relate these two notions. The concept of critique has a long history in
philosophy. It forms a part of the whole development of the Modern outlook, and
to illustrate that, let me just mention René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and Karl
Marx. As a philosophical concept, uncertainty is still in need of some exploration.
Often Descartes has been presented as the first Modern philosopher. As part
of his critical endeavour, he introduced the universal doubt: what was possible
to doubt could not be true by necessity. Furthermore, since Descartes assumed
knowledge should only be made up of necessary truths, he let the universal doubt
sweep away all forms of assumed knowledge and beliefs. The universal doubt is
a powerful critical activity, and one has to remember that this doubt was activated
by Descartes within a historical context dominated by the celebration of faith
within the Christian religion. When the proper ground for knowledge had been
established, eliminating whatever could possibly be doubted, only what must be
true with certainty would remain. Upon this foundation the deductive construc-
tion of knowledge could be built. Thus, according to Descartes, a strict rational
deduction could confront doubt.
Through his philosophy, Kant addressed the questions: What is knowledge?
What can be known? What can be known with certainty? Kant wanted to look be-
hind all particular examples of knowledge and to identify the universal conditions
Critique as Uncertainty, pages ix–xv.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ix
x • CRITIQUE AS UNCERTAINTY
for obtaining knowledge. This is the defining element in his critical philosophy.
He wanted to provide a foundation for knowledge as well as to identify the pos-
sible limits of all possible kind of knowledge. He wanted to study knowledge a
priori to any specific examples of knowledge. Following Kant, critique turns into
an examination of our universal conditions for obtaining knowledge.
Marx, however, added a new dimension to critique. He addressed political
economy, both in its theoretical formulations and in its real-life manifestations. In
this way, he elaborated critique not only as a logical and epistemological endeav-
our, but also as a political one. From being the elements of reflection and theory,
critique also became a real-life activity. Marx was a firm believer in progress, and
he even found it possible to identify the logic of progress. For Marx, this logic
is composed of economic and material changes. This crushing dialectical logic
had brought about the destruction of feudalism and made space for capitalism
which, according to Marx, represented tremendous social progress compared to
feudalism. However, Marx’s logic of progress also includes the destruction of
capitalism, making space for true socialism. According to Marx, a critical activity
obtains its essence from this deep logic of progress, which ultimately takes the
form of class struggle. While Kant established critique as an investigation of the
general epistemic human condition, Marx elaborated critique as an engagement
with the general human condition in its material, economic, and political forms.
There are many differences between the critical enterprises of Descartes, Kant,
and Marx. There is also, however, an important similarity. They all represent pre-
occupations with obtaining certainty, either with respect to what one knows, or
with respect to what one is doing.
I want, however, to develop critique outside any alliance with certainty. I am
not trying to establish any solid foundation for knowledge. Nor am I trying to
identify any solid foundation for political actions. Yes, critique includes a politi-
cal dimension, but critique does not include guidelines or well-defined directions.
A critique cannot be positioned on solid foundations. Instead, I want to associate
critique with uncertainty, also in the educational domain. In fact I see critique as
an expression of uncertainty.
This book is composed of some already published papers and some new texts
and is organised in five parts. The chapters in each part are not placed in any strict
chronological order of threir original publication. Sometimes I start with the old-
est; sometimes with the most recent; sometimes I mix them up. In deciding the
final order, I tried to provide the best possible flow for the reader.
I like to write. I like to work on a new manuscript. I like to let ideas develop
as I am writing. I am curious to see where the writing might take me. Sure, I have
some ideas in advance, but writing is for me a powerful process. It seems to create
its own dynamic. I also like to carry out the final editing: changing a word here
and a word there, shortening a sentence, and deleting a repetition. Then, finally,
the manuscript goes to the printer.
Introduction • xi
I like to see the printed text. However, I do not read the text again. I had
a friend, who published many articles in journals and newspapers. He told that
when the publication arrived, he always read it again, from start to finish. Some-
times he read it twice. I cannot image myself doing this. In fact, I do not think that
I ever had read one of my published articles or books when it was first published.
I admit that I have looked at some, for instance when I have to prepare a lecture.
But I have never done a complete rereading.
So, it was some of an experience to bring together this book of previously pub-
lished work. I have read it all again—and more than once. I have done some minor
editing, basically by deleting. Thus I have deleted some references and footnotes
and modified some sentences, first of all by shortening them. In some cases I have
deleted longer pieces of texts. When one publishes a paper in one journal, and
then a related paper in a different journal, the papers might, with good reasons,
include some overlapping material. But when these articles appear next to each
other in the same book, such repetitions appear disturbing.
Part 1, “Working with Mathematics,” includes the paper “Landscapes of Inves-
tigation,” and let me tell a bit about the context for writing it. In 1996, I was about
to give a lecture to about 100 teachers. I was a bit delayed in my preparations,
but I knew that I was going to talk about project work in mathematics education.
And, sure enough, I would emphasise the importance of project work; the im-
portance of addressing real-life problems; and the importance of students getting
ownership of the whole process. I had many examples to draw on and I had given
several such lectures, so I was somehow prepared.
I then imagined the teachers’ faces when I was about to start; they were also
prepared. So many times they must have heard a presenter telling them what they
had to do: activating the students; organising group work; and also doing project
work. But, they also knew about real-life classrooms, and about the obstructions
that tend to turn well-intended ideas into wordy illusions. I imagined their prepa-
ration and decided to try to give the lecture a different slant.
First, I did not make any particular use of the notion of project work. Instead
I talked more freely about different possibilities for creating investigations. The
notion of landscapes of investigation emerged through this lecture. I talked about
different possible landscapes, also of landscapes located within mathematics. I
did not talk about what a teacher should do, but about possibilities.
My presentation was supported by a figure (Figure 4 in Chapter 1) in which I
presented six different teaching-learning milieus. This figure was not assumed to
provide any principal categorisation of teaching-learning milieus—there could be
many other milieus—it was just used to provide a simple overview of possibilities
that I addressed in the lecture. The figure turned out, however, to be very useful
and I have used it in many presentations subsequently.
I came to realise how this figure facilitated discussions of educational pos-
sibilities and difficulties. It provided invitations for many different discussions;
thus the notion of comfort zone and risk zone—introduced by Miriam Godoy
xii • CRITIQUE AS UNCERTAINTY
Penteado and elaborated further by Denival Biotto Filho—can be related back to

this figure. Certainly it can be elaborated much further, I agree completely. It is a
simplistic diagram, but still it works as an invitation for discussing possibilities
and challenges in mathematics education and for developing shared pedagogical
imaginations.
Part 2, “Foregrounds and Possibilities,” addresses a notion I have been strug-
gling with for a long time, and which I am continuing to try to develop. This is the
notion of foreground, which has to do with the interpretation of learning.
I see learning as a form of action. One can naturally ask if all kinds of learn-
ing can be seen as a form of action. This issue of generality I have not found too
productive, and I am ready to assume that some forms of learning cannot be called
actions. Certainly soldiers are learning something at the drill ground. They are
forced to do so, but one can consider to what extent they are acting as learners.
One can also consider the almost subconscious assimilations of values within a
cultural context. Is this an example of or a counter example to learning interpreted
as action?
I leave such questions aside here, and just emphasise that in many cases I find
it relevant to consider learning as action. This invites questions such as: What mo-
tives could students possibly have for engaging in particular learning activities?
What meaning could they associate to an educational task? What kind of inten-
tions could they establish in the learning process?
I characterise a foreground as a combination of two features: First, the possi-
bilities which the social, political, economic, and cultural context provide for the
person. Second, the person’s experience and interpretation of these possibilities.
The notion of foreground provides a way of capturing the space of possibilities
and obstructions that constitutes motives, meanings, and intentions.
Part 3, “Democracy as a Challenge,” includes my paper “Mathematics Educa-
tion and Democracy.” It has been much referred to, which is something I am very
happy about. It also includes a notion which has troubled me: “democratic compe-
tence.” What kind of competence are we in fact talking about? Does it make any
sense to talk about democratic incompetence?
The problem has to do with the use of concepts, like democracy, social justice,
inclusion, equality, equity, not to forget critique and critical. Such notions are
drifting around in a sky of positive associations. Who would explicitly work for
social injustice? Or for more inequality through education? In many contexts it
is taken for granted that such concepts demonstrate universally attractive values.
One really needs a philosophical anarchism of Nietzschean brutality to be able to
point out democracy as an instantiation of a most appalling slave morality. With-
out mercy, Nietzsche punctured the too-cozy floating blue conceptual balloons.
I do not refrain from using blue balloon concepts. In fact I think it is important
to use notions like democracy, social justice, inclusion, and such. It is important,
also in education, to try to express visions, imaginations, and aspirations. It is
important to try to formulate a mathematics education for social justice; to es-
Introduction • xiii
tablish democratic classroom practices; and to work for social inclusion through
education. However, it is important to remember that any such visions are not
substantiated through the very notions of democracy, social justice, and equity.
Such concepts do not contain much firmness or gravity. Nevertheless, I think it is
important to use such notions, acknowledging that imaginations can be as fragile
as any other blue balloons.
Part 4, “Mathematics and Power,” addresses an issue that is important for the
whole conception of mathematics. Long ago I started writing about the format-
ting power of mathematics. I considered this an important extension of the social
interpretation of mathematics. Many studies have emphasised that mathematics
is socially structured: that the apparent pure logical structures of mathematics do
not represent any universal rationality, but, instead, include a historicity. The logic
of mathematics is a sociological phenomenon, a position with which I am very
comfortable.
By talking about the formatting power of mathematics, I wanted, however,
to add a second part to this story, namely that social structures are also formed
through mathematics. I saw the possibility of a complex looping between math-
ematics and the social. I got to this idea through discussions of mathematical
modelling. Through a range of examples, I pointed out how mathematical models
form procedures in production, economy, managements, politics, medicine, war-
fare, and daily life. It is such observations that I have tried to condense by the
construct of the formatting power of mathematics.
It was pointed out to me, however, that the very construct “formatting power of
mathematics” invites misunderstandings. By talking about the formatting power
of mathematics it sounds like it was mathematics as such that did the formatting.
However, it is crucial to address the complexity of the agency of the formatting.
This agency includes the people who constructed the model; the institutions that
asked for the model building; and the routines established through the model. A
model could serve a multitude of interests. All this could hardly be assigned to
mathematics.
In order to prevent any simplification of this issue, I started talking about math-
ematics in action. This expression did not invite any simple conclusions about
agency. In fact I felt that this change of terminology provided a more adequate
way of addressing the relationship between mathematics and power. This is a
relationship in need of being further explored. It was, however, not addressed
in any classic philosophy of mathematics, which appears blind to power issues.
Foucault provided a grand opening of the science-power issue. He concentrated
on psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and related issues. He demonstrated how
apparent science-based standards and procedures incorporate particular interests
and perspectives of the particular historical period. He did not address, however,
the so-called exact sciences including mathematics. Within this domain, we find a
principal interaction between knowledge and power.
xiv • CRITIQUE AS UNCERTAINTY
I have found it helpful to think of mathematics as discourse. Naturally, I do not

want to claim that mathematics is only a discourse. However, the discourse per-
spective helps to broaden the interpretation of mathematics and power. To address
mathematics in action becomes similar to address discourses in action. Certainly
discourses are operating through people; still they can form ideologies, structures,
and routines, just as in the case of mathematics.
Part 5, “Critical Mathematics Education,” concludes with my paper “Math-
ematics Education versus Critical Education.” This was my first publication in
English. In 1982 I had finished my PhD and I had published books and papers, all
in Danish. I had got a job at Aalborg University and was working in mathematics
education. One day one of my colleagues asked whether I had considered publish-
ing something in English. In fact, I had not really thought of that. I saw myself as
a Danish mathematics educator, engaged in the Danish context; English was a bit
out of my reach.
Anyway, I came to be attracted to challenge, and I started writing in English.
It was a paper-and-pencil exercise. When I had drafted some pages, I sent them to
a friend of mine, who was very well versed in English. Like a good teacher, she
corrected the texts. I rewrote the pages again, and then added some more pages,
and so it continued until I got to the end of the paper. There then followed several
revisions of the whole text. Eventually I found myself unable to imagine any more
improvements, and I sent the paper to Educational Studies in Mathematics. It was
well received, although the English was still problematic. But the editor, Alan
Bishop, supported me tremendously in bringing everything into a proper shape
such that in 1985, it was published.
The title, “Mathematics Education versus Critical Education,” reflects some of
my principal concerns of the time. Let me explain. From the mid-1970s, I began
trying to formulate a critical mathematics education. However, there was one is-
sue, which at the time I experienced as a challenge. Critical education in general
was far from expressing any interest in mathematics education. If not simply ig-
nored, mathematics education was considered as being almost an obstruction to
critical education. This position found some justification in Critical Theory and in
particular in Habermas’ formulations. He claimed that the interest in emancipa-
tion would establish the social sciences in their proper critical format, and many
formulations of critical education emphasised that education had to be guided by
this interest. As a consequence, it appeared contradictory to talk about a critical
mathematics education, as mathematics was claimed to be constituted by a techni-
cal interest.
Certainly I was ready to acknowledge that mathematics education, as acted out
in the school mathematics tradition, did not demonstrate any affinity with the vi-
sions of critical education. Nor did mathematics education, in the form suggested
by the Modern Mathematics Movement, demonstrate any such affinity. One had
to search for new directions for establishing a critical mathematics education. In
other words, critical mathematics education had to be worked out, not through any
Introduction • xv
theoretical import, nor even from Critical Theory, but through its own theoretical
and educational creativity.
Critical mathematics education has been on its way for a long time. However,
it is not anything specific and stable; it is a process, a challenge, a preoccupation.
I do not assume the existence of any blueprints for social and political improve-
ments. I do not think that any theoretical structures can provide any solid founda-
tion for a critical activity. For me critique is an open activity, and an uncertain
activity. This applies just as much to critical mathematics education.
PART 1
WORKING WITH MATHEMATICS
CHAPTER 1
LANDSCAPES OF
INVESTIGATION
In his observations in English classrooms, Cotton (1998) noticed that a mathemat-

ics lesson is divided into two parts: first, the teacher presents some mathematical
ideas and techniques; then the students work with selected exercises. He has also
noticed that there are variations of the same pattern, reaching from a full-lesson
teacher presentation to a full-lesson student occupation with exercises. Accord-
ing to this and many other observations, traditional mathematics education falls
within the exercise paradigm. Most often, the mathematical textbook represents
a “given” for the classroom practice. Exercises are formulated by an authority
external to the classroom. This means that the justification of the relevance of the
exercises is not part of the mathematics lesson itself. Furthermore, a central prem-
ise of the exercise paradigm is that one and only one answer is correct.
The exercise paradigm can be contrasted with an investigative approach. Such
an approach can take many forms, one example being project work, as described
for primary and secondary school education in Nielsen, Patronis, and Skovsmose
(1999) and in Skovsmose (1994), and for university studies in Vithal, Christian-
sen, and Skovsmose (1995). In general, project work is located in a “landscape”
Critique as Uncertainty, pages 3–20.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 3
4 • CRITIQUE AS UNCERTAINTY
which provides resources for making investigations. Project work represents a

learning milieu, different from the exercise paradigm.
My interest in the investigative approach is related to critical mathematics edu-
cation, which can be characterized in terms of different concerns,1 one of which
is the development of mathemacy, seen as a competence similar to literacy, as
characterized by Freire. Mathemacy refers not only to mathematical skills but
also to a competence in interpreting and acting in a social and political situation
structured by mathematics. Critical mathematics education includes a concern
for developing mathematics education in support of democracy, implying that
the microsociety of the mathematics classroom must also show aspects of de-
mocracy. Critical mathematics education emphasizes that mathematics as such is
not simply a subject to be taught and learnt (no matter whether the processes of
learning are organized according to a constructivist or a sociocultural approach).
Mathematics itself is a topic which needs to be reflected upon, as mathematics is
part of our technology-based culture, and it exercises many functions, which may
best be characterized by a slight reformulation of “Kranzberg’s First Law”: What
mathematics is doing is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral (see Kranzberg,
1997). D’Ambrosio (1994) has used a more harsh formulation emphasizing that
mathematics makes part of our technological, military, economic and political
structures, and as such it becomes a resource for wonders as well as for horrors.2
Making a critique of mathematics as part of mathematics education is a concern of
critical mathematics education. Such concerns seem better taken care of outside
the exercise paradigm.
The following presentation is partly based on my work on project-based math-
ematics education, and it is related to my work with teachers, with whom I have
discussed these ideas—teachers working in very different political, economic,
and cultural contexts. I always start with an example.
An Example
A landscape which can support investigative work, I call a landscape of inves-
tigation.3 We take a look at the good old table of numbers, which has certainly
decorated the walls of many mathematics classrooms and served as basis for a
variety of exercises. We concentrate on a rectangle drawn on the table. If the num-
bers in the corners of the rectangle are labelled a, b, c, and d, and it is possible to
calculate the value of determined by F = ac – bd.
The rectangle can then be translated to another position, and the value of F =
ac – bd can be calculated again.
1
See Skovsmose and Nielsen (1996).
2
See also D’Ambrosio (1998).
3
The following example is inspired by Ole Einar Torkildsen’s lecture at the NOMUS Conference in
Aalborg (Denmark) in 1996.
Landscapes of Investigation • 5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 …
FIGURE 1. The good old table of numbers.
For instance (see Figure 1), we observe that 22 × 34 – 24 × 32 = –20, and that
37 × 49 –39 × 47 = –20. Let us try to translate the rectangle to a different position
and again calculate the value of F. By the way, what will happen if we rotate the
rectangle 90° and make the same calculation? Well, . . . What is going to happen,
if we choose a bigger rectangle and make a similar translation? What will now
be the value of How does the value of F = ac – bd depend on the size of the rect-
angle?
Naturally, it is possible to investigate translations of other figures. What will
happen if we calculate the values F = ac – bd and a, b, c, and d refer to the num-
bers determined by the corners of the shapes shown in Figure 2? Which of these
figures can be “translated” within the table of numbers without the value of F
being changed?
Why not investigate a function different from F? For instance, what will hap-
pen if we permute the operations subtraction and multiplication and instead of F
= ac – bd calculate G = (a – c)(b – d) (a, b, c, and d and still refer to the corners
of a rectangle)? Would G be constant under translation? What about the other fig-
ures shown at Figure 2? Do other functions exist which are rectangle-translatable
(meaning that the value of the function is kept constant during a translation)?
Yes, of course a function H defined as H = 0a + 0b – 0c + 0d. But do more “in-
FIGURE 2. Other figures to be translated.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39 40 41 42
43 44 45 …
FIGURE 3. A different set up for the table of numbers.
teresting” rectangle-translatable functions exist? If we succeed in finding such a

function, would it, then, also be rhombus-translatable? Would, in fact, any rect-
angle-translatable function be rhombus-translatable? In more general terms, what
functions make which figures translatable?
What if we consider negative numbers? Thus, the number table from Figure
1 could be extended adding numbers to the left and to the right of each line, so
that we have to do with number lines placed on top of each other. We could then
consider translations which bring the figures into areas with negative numbers.
Incidentally, what would happen if the table was set up as shown at the Figure 3?
It must also be possible to carry out the calculation in a different number base.
Would the quality of “translatability” depend on which number base we are con-
sidering?
Naturally, we need not concentrate on configurations of numbers determined
by the corners of a figure with four corners. We could consider any configuration
of numbers, a1, ..., an, and any function, F = F(a1, ..., an). The question would
then be, what functions defined on a configuration of numbers are constant with
respect to translation of the configuration? And why not consider rotation as well?
Or any other movement of the figure? Furthermore, up to now we have concen-
trated on a particular property of the function F, being constant or not, but we
could observe many other properties of the function F. This leads to the question,
What functions defined on a configuration of numbers exhibit “nice” properties
under translation?
What if . . . ?
We imagine that this example has occupied some students and a teacher for a
while. We have been observing their conversation. The teacher has asked “What
if . . . ?” and later we hear again his or her “What if . . . ?” The students might
be surprised by some of the mathematical properties indicated by the questions.
Mumbling is heard all around. Later it becomes possible to hear students’ voices
more clearly “What if . . . ?” “Yeah, what if . . . ?” Maybe the teacher asks “Why is
it that . . . ?” which leads to more mumbling and, maybe longer periods of silence.
Later on some of the students voices can be heard “Yes, why is it that . . . ?”
A landscape of investigation invites students to formulate questions and to look
for explanations. The invitation is symbolized by the teacher’s “What if . . . ?” The
students’ acceptance of the invitation is symbolized by their “Yes, what if . . . ?” In
this way the students become involved in a process of exploration. The teacher’s
“Why is it that . . . ?” provides a challenge, and the students’ “Yes, why is it that
. . . ?” illustrates that they are facing the challenge and that they are searching for
explanations. When the students in this way take over the process of exploration
and explanation, the landscape of investigation comes to constitute a new learning
milieu. In a landscape of investigation the students are in charge.
Does the example about the translation of figures then, in fact, function as a
landscape of investigation? Maybe, maybe not, because a landscape only func-
tions as a landscape of investigation if the students do accept the invitation. Serv-
ing as a landscape of investigation is a relational property. Acceptance of the in-
vitation depends on the nature of the invitation (the possibility of exploring and
explaining pure mathematical properties of a number table might not appear so
attractive to many students). It depends on the teacher (an invitation can be pre-
sented in many ways, and to some students an invitation from a teacher might
sound like a command). And it depends certainly on the students (they might have
other priorities for the time being). What might serve perfectly well as a land-
scape of investigation for one group of students in one particular situation might
not provide any invitation to another group of students. The question whether a
certain landscape might support an investigative approach or not is an empirical
question which has to be answered through an experimental educational practice
by the teacher and students involved.
Milieus of Learning
Classroom practices based on landscapes of investigation contrast strikingly
with the exercise paradigm. The distinction between the two can be combined
with a different distinction which has to do with the “references” which might
provide the mathematical concepts and the classroom activities with some mean-
ing to the children.
In philosophy, many attempts have been made to clarify the notion of mean-
ing in terms of reference. Such attempts have inspired mathematics educators to
discuss meaning in terms of possible references of mathematical concepts. For
instance, the notion of fraction can be introduced by referring to the division of
pizzas, while, later, the meaning of “fraction” can be developed further by intro-
ducing different sets of references. However, meaning can also be seen, first of
all, as a characteristic of actions, and not just as a characteristic of concepts. In
my interpretation, references also include motives for actions; in other words, it
includes the context for locating an aim of an action (performed by the student
in a mathematics classroom). When, in what follows, I talk about different types
Tradition of exercises Landscapes of investigation

References to pure mathematics (1) (2)
References to a semireality (3) (4)
Real-life references (5) (6)
FIGURE 4. Milieus of learning.
of references, I will generally be alluding to meaning production in mathematics

education.4
Different types of reference are possible. First, mathematical questions and
activities can refer to mathematics and to mathematics only. Second, it is possible
to refer to a semireality—not a reality that we actually observe, but a reality con-
structed by, for instance, an author of a mathematical textbook.5 Finally, students
and teachers can work with tasks referring to real-life situations.
Combining the distinction between the three types of reference and the distinc-
tion between two paradigms of classroom practices, one gets a matrix showing
six different types of learning milieus (Figure 4). What I mean by learning milieu,
I shall try to clarify further by commenting on the different types of milieus sug-
gested by the matrix. Type (1) is positioned in a context of “pure mathematics”
as well as in the tradition of exercises. This learning milieu is dominated by exer-
cises, which can be of the form:
(27a – 14b) + (23a + 5b) – 11a =
(16 × 25) – (18 × 23) =
(32 × 41) – (34 × 39) =
Type (2) is characterized as a landscape of investigation located in numbers and

geometric figures. The introductory example about the translation of geometric
figures in a number table illustrates this type of milieu.
The type (3) milieu is located in the paradigm of exercises with references to
a semireality. The nature of such a semireality can be illustrated by the following
example:
Shopkeeper A sells dates for 85p per kilogram. B sells them at 1.2 kg for £1. (a)
Which shop is cheaper? (b) What is the difference between the prices charged by the
two shopkeepers for 15 kg of dates?
4
For an analysis of meaning production in mathematics education, see Lins (2001).
5
Christiansen (1997) refers to a “virtual reality” as a reality which is established by the mathematical
exercise itself. I use the notion “semireality” in a similar way.
Certainly there is talk about dates, shops, and prices. But I do not suppose
that the person who constructed this exercise made any empirical investigation
of how dates are sold or interviewed a person in order to find out under what cir-
cumstances it would be relevant to buy 15 kg of dates. The situation is artificial.
The exercise is located in a semireality. This example is presented in Dowling’s
book, The Sociology of Mathematics Education: Mathematical Myths/Pedagogi-
cal Texts (1998), in which he describes the “myth of references.” It is certainly a
myth that such an exercise refers to any reality. But, as I see it, it has a reference:
a semireality imagined by the author of the problem.
It might be a reference which can support some students in solving the prob-
lem. However, the practice of mathematics education has established specific
standards for how to operate in such a semireality. If, for instance, a student asks
the teacher about the distance between the shops and the home of the person who
is going to buy the dates, and if the student wants to figure out how long distance
it is possible to carry a bag of 15 kg. by making an experiment in the school yard,
and if the student asks whether both shops can be expected to deliver the dates
or not, and whether it can be assumed that the qualities of the dates from the two
shops are the same, then the teacher would most likely regard the student as trying
to obstruct the whole mathematics lesson.
Certainly, such questions generate obstruction considering the general “agree-
ment” between teacher and students operating in the exercise paradigm. Solving
exercises with reference to a semireality is an elaborated competence in math-
ematics education, based on a well-specified contract between teacher and stu-
dents. Some of the principles from the agreement are the following: The semireal-
ity is fully described by the text of the exercise. No other information is relevant
in order to solve the exercise. Further information is totally irrelevant; the sole
purpose of presenting the exercise being to solve it. A semireality is a world with-
out sense impressions (to ask for the taste of the dates is out of the question), only
the measured quantities are relevant. Furthermore, all quantitative information
is exact, as the semireality is defined in terms of these measures. Thus, the ques-
tion whether it is relevant to negotiate the price or to buy, say, a little less than15
kg of dates is devoid of meaning. The exactitude of the measurement combined
with the assumption that the semireality is fully described by the information
provided, makes it possible to maintain the one-and-only-one-answer-is-correct
assumption. The metaphysics of the semireality makes sure that this assumption
can be maintained, not only when references are made exclusively to numbers
and geometric figures, but also when references in exercises are made to “shops,”
“dates,” “kilograms,” “prices,” “distances,” as well as to other seemingly em-
pirical entities.6 In particular, this metaphysics has structured the communication
between teacher and students.
6
If it is not realized that the way mathematics fits the semireality has nothing to do with the rela-
tionship between mathematics and reality, then the ideology of certainty has found a habitat. For a
discussion of the ideology of certainty, see Borba and Skovsmose (1997).
x
x x x
x x x x x x x x
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
FIGURE 5. The terrain of the horse race.
It has been considered irrelevant to make actual observations of how math-

ematics is operating in real-life situations to being able to construct exercises of
type (3). But recently, much more careful studies of mathematical practices in
different work situations have been carried out.7 Real-life based exercises provide
a learning milieu of type (5). For instance, figures concerning unemployment can
be presented as part of the exercise, and based on such figures questions can be
asked about the decrease or the increase of the employment, comparisons can be
made between different periods of time, different countries, and so on.8 All figures
referred to are real-life figures, and this provides a different condition for the com-
munication between teacher and students, as it now makes sense to question and
to supplement the information given by the exercise. Still, the activities are settled
in the exercise paradigm.
Like milieu (3), milieu (4) also contains references to a semireality, but now
this semireality is not used as a resource for a production of exercises but as an
invitation for the students to make explorations and explanations. The “big horse
race” can serve as an example. The racecourse is drawn on the blackboard, and
eleven horses: 2, 3, 4, . . . , 12, are ready for start. Two dice are thrown, the sum
of the number of spots shown is calculated and a cross is made at the diagram.
As Figure 5 shows, the sum 6 came out three times before any of the other sums.
Horse 6, therefore, became the lucky winner, followed by horse 7 and horse 10.
This horse race can be developed into a greater classroom activity. Imagine
that we have to do with children, about 11 years old. Two bookmaker agencies
are set up behind desks in corners of the classroom. A small group of students run
each agency. Independent of each other, the agencies announce their odds. The
rest of the class, the very wealthy gamblers, make their bets: “Look, agency A
pays back 8 times the money on horse number 9. But look at agency B! They pay
back 40 times for horse number 10!” Placing the bets has to be done in a hurry,
as the next race is soon going to start. Another group of children are in charge of
the race, they ring the bell, and (a kind of) silence enters the classroom. The dice
are thrown, the sums are calculated, crosses are made, the horses race towards the
goal line. Some of the gamblers show big smiles.
7
See, for instance, Wedege (1999).
8
See, for instance, Frankenstein (1989) for exercises of this type.
Agency A has only few customers. Their odds seem far less favorable than
those provided by agency B. However, a new race is going to start. New odds are
suggested. The gamblers become surprised: “What marvellous odds this agency
A is now offering!” New bets, new races, new winners, new losers. The horses are
not anonymous anymore, and horse number 2 is called the turtle. Suddenly, one
agency loses its whole fortune. Anyway, a new millionaire sets up a new agency.
The teacher suggests that it is time for a derby. Up to now the races have had
the length of 3 units, but a derby must be of 5 units, at least. Odds are produced
by the agencies. Some of the gamblers are wearing paper hats. After the second
derby, some of the gamblers start wondering: Could horse number 7 possible be
particularly fit for derbies?
Even after several races, there is no smell of horses in the classroom. The great
horse race takes place in a semireality, but not in the educational paradigm defined
by exercises. And the many remarks about the abilities of the different horses
(“Horse number 11 needs some vitamin pills”) are not perceived as obstructions.
The strict logic governing the semireality of learning milieu number (3) is no
longer in operation. The whole activity is located in a landscape of investigation.
Many discoveries are waiting for the children. Strategies are to be produced and
improved. And, as I have chosen to describe the activity, the children certainly
accepted the invitation to participate in the big horse race.9
Another Example
Naturally, it is possible to develop landscapes of investigation with a greater
degree of reality involved than the big horse race. In Towards a Philosophy of
Critical Mathematics Education (1994), I have discussed some examples orga-
nized as project work, and such work can illustrate the learning milieu (6).
The project “Energy” concentrated on input-output models for energy. As an
introduction, the students calculated how much energy certain types of breakfast
contained (energy was measured in kJ). Then it was calculated, using formulas
from sports research, how much energy was used during a certain trip on a bike.
Formulas expressed the use of energy as a function of different parameters like
speed, length of the trip, type of bike, and the “frontal area” of the cyclist. How to
measure this area? The students found a method and completed their calculations.
In this way they were introduced to the idea of making an input-output model for
energy.
Then the project concentrated on input-output models for farming. The stu-
dents investigated a specific farm, not far away from the school. First, it was
calculated how much energy in terms of, for instance, gas was used in preparing
a certain field during a year. Sitting in the barn, the students listened to the farmer
explaining the methods of preparing the field. The students then measured the
9 I made this description while I was a visiting scholar in England. Had I stayed in Denmark, I would
most likely have described the big cycling race.
breadth of the different tools: the plough, the harvest, and such. This made it pos-
sible for them to estimate how many kilometers the farmer, on an annual basis,
had to drive the tractor in preparing the field. On this field barley was grown, and
it was calculated how much energy the harvested barley contains. In these calcu-
lations, research statistics about farming were used. According to the students’
calculations, the input-output figures were very profitable: the harvested barley
contained about 6 times the energy that was “supplied” to the field, the reason, of
course, being that the sun is a great supplier of energy. This result could be com-
pared to the official statistics in Denmark, which reveals that the factor is some-
what smaller, one reason being that the students did not consider all the relevant
types of transports which are necessary in order to manage the farming.
In this particular farm the barley was used as food for pigs, and the students
could set up a new input-output model. They collected information about how
much pigs were eating depending on their weight, and about the time needed be-
fore they were brought to the bacon factory. It was then possible to set up a new
input-output model, and the factor was calculated to be about 0.2. Only one fifth
of the energy contained in the food supplied to the pigs is contained in the meat.
Meat production, thus, seems to be a bad “economy” in terms of energy.
Were these findings characteristic of the chosen farm only? The official statis-
tics about Danish farming could report that also in this case the students’ results
were similar to official results. From an energy point of view, turning barley into
meat costs a lot of energy. In this sense, the students’ investigations became ex-
emplary, and this is an essential element in project work. The discussion can be
carried on. Is Danish farming doing things in a particular bad way, from an energy
point of view? Not particularly bad. As statistics can tell, not as bad as, for in-
stance, the U.S. farming which demonstrates a most problematic energy account.
This project illustrates different aspects of learning milieu (6). The references
are real, and they provide the activities (and not only the concepts) with mean-
ing. The students are making calculations related to real farming. This means
that “authorities” which were exercising their power in the exercise paradigm
are eliminated; thus, the assumption one-and-only-one-answer-is-correct does not
make sense any longer. When such a project is running, textbooks can rest safely
in a corner of the classroom. The teacher comes to serve as a supervisor, and new
inquiry-oriented discussions emerge: How in fact to calculate the front area of a
cyclist? The problems now become setting up models for the input-output calcula-
tions, and it becomes important to reflect on the result of the calculations. Are the
results reliable? Did we consider the relevant factors? Well, we can compare to
official statistics. But are these results correct? Critical reflection on mathematics
and on mathematical modeling gets a new significance.
In Denmark the official curriculum is no hindrance for students and teacher
to operate in learning milieu (6). No exams after each school year, where the
students can fail, determine specific classroom activities. Only after the 9th year
will the students face a national exam in mathematics. Marks will be given, but
everybody will pass. Furthermore, this exam supports an investigative approach

since, in its written part, it does not presuppose any memorized knowledge and,
in its oral part, it concentrates on groups of students making mathematical inves-
tigations. Nevertheless, the exercise paradigm also finds a strong support in this
corner of the world.
Moving between Different Learning Milieus

Naturally, the matrix in Figure 4 represents a strong simplification. The ver-
tical line separating the exercise paradigm from landscapes of investigation is
certainly a very “broad” line, representing a huge terrain of possibilities. Some
exercises can provoke problem-solving activities, which might turn into genuine
mathematical investigations. Problem posing means a further step into landscapes
of investigation, although problem-posing activities can be very different from
project work. No doubt the horizontal lines are also “fluffy.” My point, of course,
is not to try to provide any clear-cut classification but to elaborate the notion
of milieus of learning in order to facilitate discussions about making changes in
mathematics education.
A good deal of mathematics education is switching between the milieus (1) and
(3). In this sense the exercise paradigm provides a foundation for “tradition” in
mathematics education. Many studies in mathematics education have been carried
out providing a desolate picture of what is going on in a traditional classroom.
Some of these studies, however, do not acknowledge that other possible learning
milieus do exist in mathematics education, and that the observations are linked
to a particular organization of the mathematics classroom, although a most typi-
cal one.10 A differentiation between “the school mathematics tradition” and “the
inquiry mathematics tradition” has been suggested by Richards (1991). This dif-
ferentiation certainly also fits into the matrix. Exercises are a defining element of
the school mathematics tradition.
In Denmark a challenge to the school mathematics tradition has been presented
by the type (6) learning milieu. However, I find it important that the challenges
are organized in terms of learning milieus of types (2) and (4) as well as of (6).
I do not want to make the claim that milieu (6) is the only essential alternative
to the exercise paradigm. In fact, I do not want to suggest that a particular learn-
ing milieu can become designated to represent the ultimate goal for mathematics
education, critical or not.
I support a mathematics education moving between the different milieus as
presented in the matrix. In particular, I do not regard it as an aim to abandon exer-
cises from mathematics education altogether. It might make good sense after, say,
the big horse race to use a period for “consolidation” in which the students work
with exercises related to the notion of probability. It is important that students
and teacher together find their route among the different milieus of learning. The
10
See, for instance, Walkerdine (1988).
“optimal” route cannot be determined in advance but has to be decided upon by

students and teacher. The matrix of learning milieus can also be used as an ana-
lytic tool. For instance, it is possible for the students and the teacher to reconsider
last year’s route: Which learning milieus did we experience? Have we spent all
the time in one or two milieus? In which milieu did we experience a particular
success? Did some moves from one milieu to another cause difficulties? Many
considerations of planning can be referred to the matrix.
Long ago, I was engaged in a mathematical project involving young children,
about 7 years old. The main aim of the project was to plan and to construct a play-
ing ground outside the windows of the classroom where there was a small piece
of ground available for the class. Certainly, this activity took place in a learning
milieu of type (6), and, as a result of the project, a small playground was in fact
set up outside the windows of the classroom with the active help of parents dur-
ing a few weekends. Before that, however, much activity had taken place. As the
first thing, the children visited other playing grounds in order to test which one
was a “good” one. Children, 7 years old, are experts in carrying out this kind of
test. More difficult, however, was specifying the exact quality of the good playing
ground. How tall are the swings? How much sand is needed? And so on. Many
things have to be measured, and in order not to forget such measures it becomes
important to make notes about the observations. Not an easy task!
Such periods of intense activity are very fruitful and important, but other more
relaxed types of activities are important as well, both for the teacher and for the
children. As part of the project about the playground (which lasted for a few
months), there were organized periods of “office work,” which actually looked
like an excursion into the learning milieu of type (1). The children were orga-
nized in small groups working in their “offices.” As in any public office, voices
were low. The children had juice or lemonade in plastic cups standing on their
desks which, by some magic, now looked like real office desks. Sometimes the
office workers nibbled at a cookie while they added up numbers. Sometimes the
radio poured out low, soft music. Sometimes the teacher played the guitar. The
papers scattered around the desks contained first of all exercises in adding and
subtraction. The point is that the children during the more intensive periods of
project work had recognized the importance of being able to add numbers, and
to add them correctly. During office hours, these kinds of skills could then be
consolidated, and reasons for doing such office work were found in the previous
periods of the project work. The actual setup of “office work” broke the pattern
of the normal exercise paradigm, although the activity as such was of type (1).
This illustrates that the route between the different milieus might help to provide
the students’ activities with new meaning. The office work did not take place in
an atmosphere of the school mathematics tradition, although it took place in the
exercise paradigm. In particular, the communication between teacher and students
in the office was not governed by the same logic as the communication between
teacher and students adjusted to the school mathematics tradition.
The consolidation provided by office work also serves as a preparation for be-
ing engaged in a new project. To create harmony between project work and course
work has been a big challenge to the project-based mathematics education—no
matter whether we have to do with project based university studies in mathemat-
ics or with elementary school mathematics.
Sometimes, in discussions with teachers, it has been suggested to me that be-
fore trying to investigate any landscape the students should be equipped with
some understanding and techniques which, most efficiently, can be produced
within an exercise paradigm. The big horse race illustrates why, in my opinion,
this is not generally the case. Had the children, before the race, been introduced to
some basic notions of probability illustrated by the canonical diagram: the num-
ber of eyes of the red dice is shown at the -axes, the number of eyes of the blue
dice is shown at the -axes, and the sum . . . , then the fascination of the game could
be lost. However, an opposite route, from (4) to (3), is relevant in many cases.
When the game has been tried out and the children have become familiar with the
strengths and weaknesses of the different horses and they have got an idea about
the reliability of odds, then the children and the teacher can start making particular
observations and finding explanations. And exercises can be used as a means of
stabilizing some experiences.
Generalisation: Culture of the Mathematics Classroom

The six types of learning milieus have been specified in terms of references (to
pure mathematics, to a semireality or to real-life situation) and forms of organiz-
ing tasks (exercises or investigations), but many other elements can be considered
in specifying learning milieus.
A learning milieu is certainly also determined by the nature of the stratification
of the students which may take place. By a stratification, I mean a way of pro-
viding an order of the students according to ability. A stratification can be made
in the most brutal way, as for instance in many schools in England, by a public
streaming of the students into A, B, C, and D levels. An evaluation of a student
can be communicated to the student, and to the student only. But explaining to a
student where he or she is “positioned” in terms of performance is very different
from making a stratification public. Such stratification is a most powerful way
of disciplining students. And when a stratification is integrated in exam systems
of passing and failure, then the stratification takes the form of school violence
towards students. Public stratification contradicts the concern of developing the
mathematics classroom as a microsociety where democratic values can be experi-
enced. The nature of the communication between teacher and students definitely
depends on the stratification in operation.
Many other aspects are important for characterizing a learning milieu: forms
of communication which can vary from being fixed by the exercise-discourse to
being a dialogue; use of information and communication technologies; economic
resources of the school; the students’ background; political conflicts represented
in the classroom; the students future possibilities in life; and so on.11 Taken to-
gether all such aspects influence the learning milieu, and they establish the culture
of the classroom. But in order to give this notion a full value we have to consider
all such aspects.12
The Risk Zone

French research in mathematics education has paid much attention to the no-
tion of didactical contract.13 With reference to the notion of learning milieu, a
didactical contract can be defined in terms of “balance in a learning milieu.”
Thus, a didactical contract refers to an established harmony between parameters
of the learning milieu: the way meaning is produced, the tasks are organized,
the textbook is structured, the communication are carried out, and so on. And,
furthermore, this harmony must be recognized and accepted by both teacher and
students. That a didactical contract is established does not, however, reveal any-
thing about the quality of the learning milieu. It first of all indicates that teacher
and students have a shared understanding and acceptance of the priorities of the
learning milieu. Their interaction is not problematic as long as both parties rec-
ognize the contract.
A didactical contract can be broken in many ways, for instance when students
start asking about details of a semireality, as described previously. The contract
can be broken if the evaluation is drastically changed. In general, improvement
of mathematics education is closely linked to breaking the contract. And when,
initially, I suggested a challenge to the paradigm of exercise, it can also be seen as
a suggestion for breaking the contract of the school mathematics tradition.
From the teacher’s perspective this might appear as moving from a comfort
zone into a risk zone. This notion has been introduced by Penteado (2001) in her
study of teacher’s experiences in a new learning environment where computers
play a crucial role. Moving between the different possible learning milieus, and
paying special attention to landscapes of investigation, will cause a great deal of
uncertainty. My point is that uncertainty is not to be eliminated. The challenge is
to face uncertainty.
Computers in the mathematics classroom have helped to establish new land-
scapes of investigation, thus the computer will easily come to challenge the au-
thority of the (traditional) mathematics teacher. Students working with, say, dy-
namic geometry will easily come to face situations and experience possibilities
not foreseen by the teacher as part of his or her planning of the lesson. A student’s
eager clicking on the mouse might quickly lead to an unknown corner of the
11
For a discussion of communication in the mathematics classroom see, for instance, Alrø and Skovs-
mose (1996a, 1996b, 1998).
12
See, for instance, Lerman (1994); Nickson (1992); Powell and Frankenstein (1997); Valero (1999);
Vithal (1999, 2003); and Volmink (1994).
13
See, for instance, Brousseau (1997).
program: What to do now? How to get out of here? The teacher must always be
ready to face questions which cannot easily be answered. The traditional teacher-
authority can be broken within seconds, and nobody knows which time next. Cer-
tainly not the teacher. The degree of unpredictability is high.
When students are exploring a landscape of investigation, the teacher cannot
predict what questions may come next. One way of eliminating this risk is, for the
teacher, to try to guide everybody back into the exercise paradigm and into the
comfort zone. Thus, the whole exploration of translatability of geometric figures
in the number table could be reorganized as a sequence of exercises. And instead
of letting the students play around with the program of a dynamic geometry, the
teacher could specify each step to be taken: “First you select a point. Yes, all of
you! This point we call A. Then you select another point. This other point we
call B . . . ” By organizing the activities by means of such orders, the teacher can
bring about (almost) the same picture on all the screens in the classroom. When
students in this way are moving slowly forward like soldiers in columns and rows,
the teacher can prevent the occurrence of the unpredictably events and challenges.
By doing so, however, many learning opportunities are lost as well.
Any landscape of investigation raises challenges to a teacher. A solution is not
to rush back into the comfort zone of the exercises paradigm, but to be able to
operate in the new environment. The task is to make it possible for the teacher and
students to operate in cooperation within a risk zone, and to make this operation
a productive activity and not a threatening experience. This means, for instance,
accepting that “what if . . . ” questions can lead the investigation into unknown
territory. According to the research of Penteado (2001), an important condition for
teachers to be able to operate in a risk zone is the establishment of new forms of
cooperative work in particular among teachers, but also along the line of students-
parents-teachers-researcher.
However, why bother about operating in the risk zone? Why not simply ac-
cept the didactical contract of the school mathematics tradition which has been so
carefully elaborated? Cobb and Yackel refer to “intellectual autonomy” as an ex-
plicitly stated goal for their efforts to establish an inquiry mathematics tradition in
contrast to a school mathematics tradition. Intellectual autonomy is characterized
“in terms of students’ awareness of and willingness to draw on their own intel-
lectual capabilities when making mathematical decisions and judgements” (Cobb
& Yackel, 1998, p. 170). Intellectual autonomy can be associated to the activities
of exploration and explanation as facilitated by landscapes of investigation. It is
difficult to see this autonomy rooted in those rules which constitute the adequate
behavior when operating in a semireality in milieu (3). In particular, leaving the
“risk zone” in search for a comfort zone also means eliminating learning opportu-
nities linked to computers-as-reorganizers.
Making a move in the matrix of Figure 4 away from the exercise paradigm and
into the direction of landscapes of investigation may help to abandon the authori-
ties of the traditional mathematics classroom and make students the acting subject
in their learning process.
Making a move in the matrix of Figure 4 away from references to pure math-
ematics and to real-life references may help to provide resources for reflections
on mathematics.14 Thus, studies of classrooms where real-world problems were
the starting point for mathematical considerations made Voigt state the following
hope:
As future citizens, students will have to cope with many real-world problems that
seem to be mathematically intransparent . . . Is the citizen competent to distinguish
between necessary mathematical inferences and the suppositions of modelling that
depends on interests? It could be hoped that paying more attention to the quality of
the negotiation of mathematical meaning in the classroom could improve the educa-
tion of the “competent layman.” (Voigt, 1998, p. 195)
I certainly share this hope, and real-life references seem necessary in order to
establish a detailed reflection on the way mathematics may be operating as part of
our society. A critical subject is also a reflecting subject.
How can we develop a mathematics education as part of our concern for de-
mocracy in a society structured by technologies that include mathematics as a
constituting element?15 How can we develop a mathematics education which does
not operate as a blind introduction of students to mathematical thinking but makes
students recognize their own mathematical capabilities and makes them aware of
the way mathematics may operate in certain technological, military, economic,
and political structures? I would never dare to claim that leaving the exercises
paradigm in order to explore landscapes of investigation would provide an answer
to these questions. Nor would I claim that it is sufficient to build mathematics edu-
cation solely on real-life references. My only hope is that finding a route among
the different milieus of learning may offer new resources for making the students
both acting and reflecting and in this way providing mathematics education with
a critical dimension.
NOTE
This paper was first published in 2001 in Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathema-
tik, ZDM, 33(4), 123–132.
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14
See also Cobb, Boufi, McClain and Whitenack (1997).
15
See, for instance, Chapter 11.
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de, Denmark.
CHAPTER 2
HOW TO DRAG WITH

A WORN-OUT MOUSE?
Searching for Social Justice through
Collaboration
Miriam Godoy Penteado and Ole Skovsmose
Education for social justice can refer to many things—and in reality, one could
hardly consider promoting education for social injustice. Consequently, one could
claim that the expression “education for social justice” is therefore empty. How-
ever, if we consider “education for social injustice,” not to be referring to educa-
tional aspirations but rather to features of educational practices, then the notion
appears to be far from meaningless. There is a myriad of ways in which we can
see injustice in education (see, for instance, Gates, 2006).
This injustice can take the form of social exclusion. A most direct example
is the way in which some groups of people are prevented from having access to
(certain forms of) education. For far too long such restrictions have been in effect
in terms of racism: Blacks have been prevented from certain forms of education
in the United States; during the apartheid regime in South Africa this type of in-
justice was exercised to an extreme; Jewish people were banned from educational
institutions during a gruesome part of German history. Furthermore, education
Critique as Uncertainty, pages 21–36.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 21
has been socially unjust in terms of sexism; one only has to consider when women
got the opportunity to attend universities in many countries. These are all very
diverse examples but reflect the depths to which injustice has reached.
Fortunately, such extreme forms of explicit exclusion are difficult to find now.
In fact, we find more and more legislation trying to ensure social inclusion through
education. In Brazil, for example, great effort was put into providing a “school for
everybody.” This motto has been expounded with particular reference to children
between 6 and 14 years, and inclusion through education has been encouraged at
other levels of the educational system, including access to universities. However,
even though some considerable effort goes into providing social inclusion via
education, there are still many obstacles.
Social inclusion is an attractive motto, but it could easily remain no more than
a motto if it is not considered how inclusion can be worked on in practice. Here,
we explore what a concern for social justice in terms of social inclusion might
mean for teacher education. Naturally, social justice refers to many more issues
than social inclusion, but we are going to concentrate on this one aspect. Further-
more, we address the issue with a particular reference to the use of information
and communication technology (ICT) in mathematics education for students in a
borderland position (described below).
Our discussion proceeds along the following lines: (1) We explore what a bor-
derland position might be in order to address what social inclusion might mean.
(2) We consider the significance of mathematics education and the use of ICT
for processes of social inclusion. (3) We briefly sketch the Interlink Network,
as many of our observations refer to this project of collaboration. (4) We pres-
ent different issues of particular importance to teacher education when aiming to
establish a mathematics education for social inclusion. This brings us to (5), our
final considerations, where we return to the notion of social justice.
The Borderland Position

In order to clarify the notion of a borderland position, we refer to the notions of
the Fourth World and the Network Society as used by Castells (1998). The Fourth
World refers to part of society that falls outside the Network Society. Castells’
point is that this Fourth World stretches across many areas of the world; it is not a
clearly defined geographic region as, say, the Third World is normally described
to be. The Fourth World is made up of regions representing the dropout of the Net-
work Society. Large parts of Western cities—New York, London, and Paris, for
instance—make up part of the Fourth World. This world includes not only slums
and squatter settlements but also regions where traditions and trades are separated
from the global network.
How to Drag with a Worn-Out Mouse? • 23
By a borderland school, we mean a school positioned close to the Fourth

World but still with a good view of the Network Society.1 It is a school where the
inequalities of society are clearly visible and where the diversity of students is
reflected in both their poverty and their affluence. Some students come from poor
neighborhoods, and for them the school is a guarantee of at least one appropriate
meal a day. For many students the school might provide the only possibility for
working with ICT.
The Network Society and the Fourth World are connected through different
processes of inclusion and exclusion, which are acted out in borderland schools.
The poorest students in such a school can “see” what is going on in the well-to-do
neighborhoods. They watch TV and they are familiar with all forms of wealthy
lifestyles, which could be reality just one block away. They know about the In-
ternet, online games, chat and e-mail, but such things are not easily accessible for
them. Their parents do not have credit cards, there is no cable TV at home, and
certainly no computer or Internet.
It is not realistic to claim that education can solve all such problems caused by
poverty. But poverty easily turns into forms of social exclusion, and to promote
education for social inclusion, requires that we address poverty as an educational
challenge. For example, what could it mean to establish a prosperous learning en-
vironment within a school in a borderland position? Furthermore, it is necessary
to think of food for the students as well as providing the opportunity for them to
experience ICT. Social inclusion is not only a set of philosophical concerns, but
also a very practical concept.
Mathematics Education, Inclusion, and ICT

A most severe form of social exclusion occurs when a particular group of
people never have the opportunity to learn how to read and write. It was with
reference to this observation that Freire (1972) embarked on his reading-writing
program. However, at the same time he provided a broad interpretation of literacy
as not only referring to competencies in reading and writing, but also referring to
sociopolitical competencies such as reading the world and reading the world as
open to change. Thus, Freire gave the notion of literacy a profound sociopolitical
dimension, and in this way he sought to make social inclusion available through
the development of literacy. Mathematical literacy can be narrowly defined as a
capacity in reading and writing mathematics, for example a capacity to deal with
mathematical calculation, formulae, diagrams, and so on. But as Eric Gutstein
suggests, we may alternatively imbue mathematical literacy with a more profound
meaning as referring also to a competency in “reading the world” and as “reading
it as open to change”:
1
For a fuller discussion of the notion of borderland, see Skovsmose, Scandiuzzi, Valero, and Alrø
(2008).
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David RoBards had his personal seasons; his feast days and fast
days in his own soul. Everybody treated him with respect as a man
of unblemished life in a home of unsullied reputation.
Then Patty met him with a doleful word:
“We’ve got to give an At Home right away. Don’t stand staring!
We’ve gone out dozens of times and accepted no end of hospitality.
We simply must pay our debts.”
“I’d like to,” said RoBards. “You and Immy have run up so many
bills at so many shops that I am almost afraid to walk the streets or
open my mail.”
This always enfuriated Patty and it angered her now:
“Since you owe so much you can owe a little more. But we owe
something to Immy. We must give a ball, and it must be a crack.”
“An orgy, you mean, if it’s to be like some of the others we’ve gone
to. Is that the most honest way to present a daughter to the world?”
“You’re getting old, Mist’ RoBards!” Patty snapped. “Orgies was
the name poor old Papa used to call the dances you and I went to in
our day.”
The upshot of it was that Patty won. The choicest personages in
town received an Alhambra-watered envelope containing a notice
that Mr. and Mrs. RoBards would be at home in St. John’s Park that
evening week. Patty sent cards also to a number of young men
whom RoBards considered far beneath his notice; but they were
asked everywhere because they could and would dance the tight
polka, the redowa, the waltz, the German; they could and would play
backgammon and graces, write acrostics, sit in tableaux, get up
serenades, riding parties, sleighing parties—anything to keep
females from perishing of boredom. They all dressed correctly and
alike, parted their hair straight down the back, posed as lost souls
and murmured spicy hints of the terrific damnations they had known
in Paris. Some of them lived in twenty-shilling-a-week boarding
houses and curled each other’s hair.
But they could and would dance instead of standing about like
wooden Indians. Some critics said that the dancing in the American
homes was faster and more furious than anything abroad, except at
the masked balls in Paris where the girls were grisettes.
Some of the beaux won an added prestige by their cynicism. They
spoke with contempt of the sex they squired. In fact, everybody said
that the new generation lacked the reverence for women that had
been shown in the better days. Some blamed the rapidly increasing
wealth of the country with its resultant laxity of morals; some blamed
the sensational novelists for their exposures of feminine frailties.
Mr. Thackeray, an English lecturer and novelist, whose “Vanity
Fair” had been a ruthless picture of British wickedness in high
circles, came in for no little rebuke.
In an article on the subject RoBards found him blamed for the
attitude of “unfledged college boys who respect nothing in the shape
of woman, and exult in his authority to throw overboard the slight
remains of the traditionary reverence which inconveniently bridles
their passions, and restrains their egotisms.”
It was into such an atmosphere that the young girl Immy and the
lad Keith must emerge from childhood. In such a dangerous world
they must live their life. RoBards shuddered at the menace.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PATTY had a linen cover stretched tight over the parlor carpet. She
got in an appalling amount of supper material; oyster soup in gallons,
dinde aux truffes by the pound, ice cream in gallons, jellies, custards,
cakes, preserves; punch by the keg, and champagne bottles by the
regiment.
Everybody came. St. John’s Park was a-roar with carriages and
bawling coachmen and footmen, some of them in livery. Tactless
people set Patty’s teeth on edge by saying that it was well worth
while coming “downtown” to see her; and Immy such a lady! She’d
be making Patty a grandmother any of these days!
For a time RoBards enjoyed the thrill, the dressed-up old women
and old men and the young people all hilarious and beautiful with
youth.
He had his acid tastes, too, for many of the people congratulated
him on the reported successes of his old crony, Captain Chalender.
He was reputed to be a millionaire at least, and one of the best loved
men in California—and coming home soon, it was rumored. And was
that true?
“So I’ve heard,” RoBards must murmur a dozen times, wondering
how far away Chalender would have to go to be really absent from
his home.
The house throbbed with dance music, the clamor and susurrus of
scandal along the wall line of matrons, the laughter; the eddies the
dancers made; young men in black and pink girls in vast skirts like
huge many-petaled roses twirled round and round.
It amazed RoBards to see how popular Immy was. She was
wrangled over by throngs of men. Her color was higher than her
liquid rouge explained; her eyes were bright, and she spoke with an
aristocratic lilt her father had never heard her use.
Keith was as tall and as handsome as any young blade there, and
his father could hardly believe that the boy could be so gallant, so
gay, so successful with so many adoring girls.
It was good to see so much joy in the home he had made for the
children whose sorrows had been so many and so real. But as the
evening grew old and the crowd thickened, his cheerfulness flagged.
Perhaps he was merely fatigued with the outgo of welcome,
sickened by having to say and hear the same things so many times.
But he saw the picnic becoming a revel. The dancers, whether
waltzing or polking, seemed to increase in audacity, in blind or
shameless abandonment to thoughts and moods that belonged to
solitude if anywhere.
As he wandered about he surprised couples stealing embraces or
kisses slily, or whispering guiltily, laughing with more than mischief.
Sometimes it was Immy that he encountered; sometimes Keith.
What could he say or do? Nothing but pretend to be sightless and
guileless.
When the supper hour was reached, the rush was incredible. Men
made a joke of the crassest behavior, and a chivalric pretense that
they were fighting for refreshment to carry to their fainting ladies. But
it was neither humorous nor knightly to spill oyster soup over a lace
dress, to tilt ice cream down a broadcloth back, or to grind fallen
custard into the expensive carpet.
It was not pretty to empty the dregs of somebody’s else
champagne into the oyster tureen or under the table, and while
refilling the glass let the wine froth all over the table cover.
Many of the squires forgot their dames and drank themselves into
states of truculence, or, worse, of odious nausea. RoBards had to
convey two young gentlemen of better family than breeding up to the
hatroom to sleep off their liquor; and he had to ask some of the
soberer youth to help him run one sudden fiend out to the sidewalk
and into a carriage.
While RoBards was spreading one of his young guests out on a
bed upstairs, another knocked over the cutglass punch-bowl and
cracked it irretrievably, together with a dozen engraved straw-stem
glasses Patty’s father had left to her.
When the German began at about midnight some of the men
dared to carry champagne bottles with them and set them down by
their chairs for reference during the pauses in the figures.
Hosts and hostesses were supposed to ignore the misconduct of
their guests, but it made RoBards’ blood run cold to see Immy go
from the arms of a decent respectful sober youth into the arms and
the liquorous embrace of a drunken faun whom she had to support.
He ventured to whisper a protest to her once. But she answered:
“Papa! don’t be ridiculous! A girl can’t discriminate. I can’t hurt a
poor boy’s feelings just because he can’t carry his liquor as well as
the rest. Besides, I’m the hostess.”
Her father cast his eyes up in helplessness at such a creed.
But even Immy and Patty could not ignore the ill fortune of Barbara
Salem, whose partner was so tipsy that he reeled her into a
handsome buhl escritoire and broke the glass door with Barbara’s
head, then fell with her to the floor and gaped while the blood from
her slashed brow ran through her hair and over her white shoulders
and her white dress and soaked through the linen cover into the
carpet beneath.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Salem were aghast at the family calamity, while
the young man wept himself almost sober with remorse. Keith’s coat
was stained with red as he carried Barbara upstairs to a bedroom to
wait for the doctor.
In the ladies’ dressing-room, which Keith had to invade, two young
women had already fainted; both from tight stays, they said. One of
them was half undressed and unlacing her corsets with more
wisdom than her heavy eyes indicated.
Immy put Keith out and ministered to the casualties.
But the dance went on. Some old prudes were shocked, but the
rest said, “A party is a party, and accidents will happen.”
Dear old Mrs. Piccard said to Patty:
“You’re lucky in having only two carpets ruined, my dear. I had
three destroyed at my last reception. But it’s nothing to what went on
in the good old days, if the truth were told. My father was with
General Washington, you know. And really——! Papa was with the
army that night when General Washington himself danced with
General Greene’s wife for three hours without sitting down. Those
were the heroic days, my dear! And drinking! Our young men are
comparatively abstemious.”
Finally the more merciful guests began to go home, leaving the
dregs behind. Young men who would doze and make mistakes at the
counting houses the next day, lingered as if it were the last night of
earth.
There was torture for RoBards in Immy’s zest, in the look of her
eyes as she stared up into the unspeakable gaze of some notorious
rake; and in the welding of her sacred body to his in a matrimonial
embrace as they waltzed round and round giddily. Yet how much
bitterer a wound it was to see her transfer herself for the next dance
to another man and pour up into his fatuous eyes the same look of
helpless passion!
The performance repeated in a third man’s bosom was confusion.
RoBards had either to turn on his heel or commit murder. And he
really could not murder all the young men whom Immy maddened.
Indeed, he was not sufficiently satisfied with his first murder to repeat
the experiment.
Yet Immy kept her head through it all; flirted, plotted, showed the
ideal Arabian hospitality in her dances. But no one made a fool of
her.
Keith, however, was overwhelmed. It was his first experience with
unlimited champagne, and he had thought it his duty to force it on his
guests and join them in every glass. It was disgraceful to leave a
heeltap. When he could no longer stand up or dance, he had to be
carried upstairs, moaning, “It’s a shame to deshert guesh.”
A boy and drunk! And weeping, not for being drunk but for not
being the last man drunk!
The world was ready for the Deluge! The American nation was
rotten to the core and would crumble at the first test.
This dance at the RoBards home was typical, rather more
respectable than many. All over town dances were held in dance
halls where the middle classes went through the same gyrations with
less grace, and in the vile dens of the Five Points where all were
swine.
Patty was too tired to speak or listen when the last guest was
gone. She could hardly keep awake long enough to get out of her
gown.
She sighed: “I’m old! I’m ready to admit it. I’m glad I’m old. I’m
never going to try to pretend again! I don’t want ever to be so tired
again. If anybody wakes me to-morrow I’ll commit murder. In God’s
name, will you never get those stay-laces untied?”
RoBards drew out a knife and slashed them and they snapped like
violin strings, releasing the crowded flesh.
Patty groaned with delight and peeling off her bodice stepped out
of the petticoats and kicked them across the floor. She spent a while
voluptuously rubbing her galled sides; then lifted her nightgown and
let it cascade about her, and fell into bed like a young tree coming
down.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE rest of the family might sleep its fill on the morrow, but RoBards
had to go to court. Getting himself out of bed was like tearing his
own meat from his bones. He could hardly flog his body and mind to
the task. If it had not been for the new shower bath the Croton River
brought to his rescue, he could never have achieved it.
The house looked positively obscene in the morning light, with the
wreckage of the festival, and no music or laughter to redeem it. Cuff
and Teen were sullen with sleepiness and the prospect of extra toil.
They emphasized the fact that the dining-room carpet was too sticky
and messy for endurance. RoBards’ breakfast was served on the
drawing-room table.
He went to court to try a case for a strange old female miser
whose counsel he had been for many years. They called her the
shrewdest business man in town and she laughed at the fact that
she was not considered fit to vote, though the Revolutionary War
had been fought because of the crime of “taxation without
representation.”
“Now that they’ve thrown away the property qualifications, every
Tom, Dick, and Harry can vote as often as he’s a mind to. But I can’t.
Every thieving politician can load taxes on my property to get money
to steal. But I have no say. My husband was a drunkard and a fool
and a libertine, and I brought him all the property he ever had. He
used it as an excuse for voting and I couldn’t even go to court in my
own protection for the law says, ‘Husband and wife are one and the
husband is the one.’
“The minute he died, I became a human being again, thank God.
But I have to have a man for a lawyer and men to judge my cases.
The lamb has to have a wolf for a lawyer and plead before a bench
of wolves. But I will say, you’re as honest a wolf as ever I knew.”
If anything could have destroyed RoBards’ faith in exclusively
white, male suffrage it would have been old Mrs. Roswell. But
nothing could shake that tradition, and he accounted her an
exception that proved the rule.
While he dealt with her professionally as if she were one of the
shrewd old merchants of New York, he treated her personally with all
the courtesy he displayed for more gentle females, and she was
woman enough to love that.
Miser that she was, she made him take higher fees than he
ordinarily charged, and they saved him again and again from despair
in the face of the increasing expense of his home.
In her desperate eagerness to fight off retirement from the ranks of
youth, Patty relied more and more on the dressmakers and hat-
makers. She developed a passion for jewelry and she spent great
sums at the Daguerrean galleries.
She would sit in frozen poses for six minutes at a time, trying to
obtain a plate that would flatter her sufficiently. But her beauty was in
her expression and especially in its fleetness, and the miracle of
Daguerre was helpless. The mist that clothed Niagara in a veil of
grace was not itself when winter made it ice. And Patty’s soul, so
sweet and captivating as it flitted about her eyes and lips, became
another soul when it must shackle itself and die.
Only a few colors were advantageous in the new process and
those were the least happy in Patty’s rainbow. Yet she dressed and
fixed her smiles and endured the agony of feeling a compelled
laughter curdle into an inane smirk. And she would weep with hatred
of her counterfeit presentment when it came home from Brady’s or
Insley’s or Gurney’s.
Immy fared little better there for all her youth. And her costliness
increased appallingly, for she must keep pace with the daughters of
wealth. When she went shabby it reflected on her father’s love or his
success, and Patty could stifle his fiercest protest by simply
murmuring:
“Hasn’t the poor child suffered enough without having to be denied
the common necessities of a well-bred girl?”
This stung RoBards into prodigies of extravagance, and Immy’s
wildest recklessness took on the pathos of a frightened child fleeing
from vultures of grief.
He could not even protest when he saw that she was taking up the
disgusting vice of “dipping.” Snuff-taking had lost its vogue among
the beaux, and only the elders preferred it to smoking tobacco.
But now the women and girls were going mad over it. In the
pockets of their skirts they carried great horn snuff-boxes filled with
the strongest Scottish weed. Stealing away from the sight of men,
they would spread a handkerchief over their laps, open the boxes,
and dipping the odious mixture on a little hickory mop, fill their pretty
mouths with it and rub it on their teeth. They seemed to take some
stimulus from the stuff, and the secrecy of it added a final tang.
All the men were arrayed against it, but their wrath gave it the
further charm of defiant wickedness.
What was getting into the women? They would not obey anybody.
Since Eve had mocked God and had desired only the one forbidden
fruit, they seemed determined to enjoy only what was fatal.
And the books they read! RoBards came home one evening to find
Immy in tears and Patty storming about her like a fury. When he
intervened Patty said:
“Would you see what I caught this child devouring! Sitting with the
gas blinding her and her eyes popping over this terrible story by
somebody named Hawthorne. The title alone is enough to make a
decent girl run from it. The Scarlet Letter. Do you know what the
letter was and what it stood for?”
RoBards shook his head. He did not read light, popular fiction. The
affidavits he handled were fiction enough for him.
Patty drew him into another room and whispered the plot of the
story. RoBards gathered that it had to do with a Puritan minister who
had a secret affair with the wife of an absent citizen, and with the
child that resulted in the mother’s very proper appearance in the
pillory.
“They ought to put the author there and sew a letter on his lapel.”
Patty raged. “No wonder the people of Salem put him out of office
and drove him out of town.”
There had been an article in the Church Review about the book.
Patty fetched it and read a few lines to RoBards:
“Is the French era actually begun in our literature? We wonder
what he would be at: whether he is making fun of all religion. Shelley
himself never imagined a more dissolute conversation than that in
which the polluted minister comforts himself with the thought that the
revenge of the injured husband is worse than his own sin in
instigating it.... The lady’s frailty is philosophized into a natural and
easy result of the Scriptural law of marriage.”
That his daughter should read of such things sent a cold thrill into
RoBards’ heart. He forgot that she had no innocence to destroy. Jud
Lasher had wrecked that. Ernest Chirnside had rejected her for its
lack. And he himself had watched her dance.
But the printed word had a peculiar damnation. He knew that
wickedness was rife everywhere about him. He knew that Immy
knew it, for the gossip was everywhere like the atmosphere. The
newspapers blazoned it. The courthouses solemnized it.
Yet to print it in a story seemed infamous. And Patty added:
“I found her crying over it! Crying her heart out over that woman
and her brat! What can we do to save that child?”
“Ah, what can we do,” RoBards groaned, “to save ourselves?”
There was something in his look that checked Patty’s ire, made
her blench, shiver, and walk away. Perhaps she was thinking of—of
what RoBards dared not remember.
That night RoBards was wakened from sleep by a bewildering
dream of someone sobbing. He woke and heard sobs. They had
invaded his slumber and coerced the dream.
He sat up and looked about. Patty undressed and freezing had
glanced into the purloined romance; and it had fastened on her. She
was weeping over Hester Prynne and her child Pearl, and
Dimmesdale, the wretched partner in their expiation.
When RoBards drowsily asked what had made her cry, she sat on
the edge of his bed and read to him. Whether it were the contagion
of her grief or the skill of the author, he felt himself driven almost to
tears. He flung a blanket about Patty’s quivering shoulders and clung
to her, wondering at this mystery of the world: that lovers long dead
in obscurity, and lovers who had never lived at all, should be made to
walk so vividly through the landscapes of imagination that thousands
of strangers should weep for them.
Or was it for their woes that one wept? Or for one’s own in the
masquerade of other names and scenes?
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE tenderest moods of devotion and shared sorrows alternated

with wrangles so bitter that murder seemed to hang in the air. Money
was the root of most of the quarreling.
When RoBards was about ready to give up and sink like a broken-
backed camel under the incessant rain of last straws, there came a
wind out of heaven and lifted the bills like petals swept from a peach
tree.
Old Mrs. Roswell was found dead in her bed one morning.
RoBards grieved for the poor old skinflint, and wondered how he
would get along without her fees.
Then her last will was turned up and in it she bequeathed to him
ten thousand dollars in gold and a parcel of land which she had
bought in when it was sold for taxes. It lay out beyond the Reservoir
on Murray’s Hill, an abandoned farm.
But he had hopes that it would one day prove of value, for there
was talk of grading Fifth Avenue from Thirty-fourth Street out to
Forty-fifth. And the World’s Fair which had been opened on July 4,
1852, in the magnificent Crystal Palace built next the Reservoir,
taught the public that Forty-second Street was not quite the North
Pole. And though it was a failure it had revealed the charm of this
region. There was, indeed, a movement on foot to create a great
park out there to be called Central Park. That would involve the
purchase of the land by the city. The “Forty Thieves,” as the
aldermen were called, would pay enough for it to leave themselves a
tidy sum.
But RoBards was to learn that windfalls from heaven bring no
permanent rescue. Patty was incensed at the thought of devoting
any of that unforeseen ten thousand dollars to the payment of bills
for worn-out dresses and extravagances of the past.
She had given a ball for Immy on her nineteenth birthday in the
desperate hope that the girl would capture a husband before she
began to fade, but though there were lovers enough, none of them
seemed to account her a sufficiently attractive match.
And this was emphasized as a further proof of RoBards’ failure as
a father. All the summer of 1853 Patty complained of the smallness
of the house at Tuliptree. The children required separate rooms.
They had guests and there was no place to put them. When Immy
had two visitors, and one of his college friends came out to spend a
week with Keith, the two boys had to clear a room in the hayloft.
They made a lark of it, but it humiliated Patty, and she swore she
would never go back to the place until RoBards added a wing to it.
To add a wing would mean the opening of the foundation and the
demolition of the chimney, and the thought terrified RoBards. He had
grown so used to the presence of Jud Lasher there that only some
unexpected proposal of this sort wakened him to the eternal danger
of a revelation all the more horrible for its delay.
Patty found so many places for the spending of his ten thousand
that she could decide on none.
But the politicians smelled his money and he was visited by an
affable ward-heeler with a suggestion that he accept a nomination
for a judgeship in the Superior Court.
Though RoBards was revolted at the thought of receiving the
ermine from hands soiled with such dirty money, his heart longed for
the dignity of a judgeship, and he knew that he could never attain the
bench without the consent of the politicians. Once aloft he could
purify the means by the purity of his decisions.
So he gave his consent and promised to contribute the necessary
funds for the campaign. And that fall he won the election. On
January first he was to mount the throne.
Patty made all manner of fun of her politician, but she took pride in
his victory and thenceforth began to call him “Judge.” It was a
change from the ancient “Mister RoBards,” a little less distant, a little
more respectful.
But RoBards noted that Immy seemed indifferent to his success or
his failure. She pretended enthusiasm over his election, but her
smile died almost before it was born. She was distraught, petulant,
swift to anger and prompt to tears. She wept at nothing.
She took no delight even in gayety. She refused to go to dances.
She denied herself to callers.
Even when snow came and brought what foreigners called “the
American pastime known as sleighing,” and the bells thrilled the
muffled streets with fairy jubilation, she kept the house.
But the mere hint of calling in a doctor threw her into spasms of
protest.
One evening when the winter night overlapped the afternoon there
came a tempest of sleet and snow and RoBards had to call a hack to
take him home from the office. He was lashed as with a cat-o’-nine
tails when he ran from the curb to his door.
And when he entered the hall in a flurry of sleet, Patty said to him:
“We’ve got to go up to Tuliptree at once—to-morrow.”
“Why? what for? for how long?”
“I don’t know for how long, but we must lose no time in getting
Immy out of town.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
ANOTHER exodus. But they were scapegoats now, fleeing into the
wilderness with a mystic burden of guilt, anonymous guilt; for Immy
would not speak.
Complete was the contrast between that first flight from the
cholera and this fleeing where no man pursued, but all men waited.
Then David and Patty RoBards were part of a stampede, striving
to save their romance from the plague. Then they were bride and
groom; now they carried with them a daughter, unforeseen then, but
older to-day than her mother was when she married RoBards. But
Immy’s bridegroom was where?—was who?
In that other journey to Tuliptree Farm the streets were smothered
with dust and the waterless city stifled under a rainless sky.
Now water was everywhere. The fountains were still, but the pipes
underground were thick as veins and arteries. Water in the form of
snow lay on the ground, on the roofs, on the shoulders of the men,
on their eyelashes, on the women’s veils and in their hair and the
feathers of their hats. It lay in long ridges on the backs of the horses
plunging, slipping, falling. It plastered the panes of the lamp-posts
and the telegraph-posts that had grown up in a new forest all over
town; it lay along the wires that strung spider webs from wall and
chimney and tree.
The banners that hung from all the shops and stretched across the
street were illegible. The busses and the hacks were moving dunes
of white.
There was a fog of snow. Everybody walked mincingly, except the
children, who rejoiced to slide on their brass-toed boots or on the
sleds that ran like great, prong-horned beetles among the legs of the
anxious wayfarers.
The RoBards trio was glad of the snow, for it gave concealment.
Immy was silent, morose, and with reason enough. If ever a soul had
the right to cry out against the unfairness, the malice of heaven, it
was Immy. She could have used the bitter words of Job:
“He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.... He will laugh at the
trial of the innocent.”
She did not feel innocent. She felt worse than wicked; she felt a
fool. But other people had been fools and vicious fools and no one
learned of it. She had been wicked and foolish before without
punishment; with reward rather, laughter, rapture, escape. Now for a
flash of insane weakness this sudden, awful, eternal penalty.
To her father and mother speech was impossible, thought almost
forbidden. If they had been taking Immy’s dead body up to a
Westchester burial, they could hardly have felt more benumbed.
Only, if she had been dead, the problem of her future would have
been God’s. Now it was theirs.
The gamble of it was that they could not foreknow the result of this
journey; whether it would mean one more life, or one death, or two.
In any case, RoBards must hasten back to his legal duties as soon
as he had placed Immy on the farm. Patty must stay and share the
jail sentence with her for—how long, who could tell?
At the railroad station they met friends, but satisfied them with a
word about the charm of the country in the winter. The train ploughed
bravely through snow that made a white tunnel of the whole
distance. The black smoke writhing in the vortex of writhing white
seemed to RoBards to express something of his own thoughts.
Travelers by rail usually expected death. Not long since, a train on
the Baltimore and Ohio had turned four somersaults in a hundred-
foot fall with frightful loss of life, and at Norwalk, Connecticut, a while
ago, forty-four people had been slaughtered and a hundred and
thirty mangled. But RoBards felt that such a solution of his own
riddles would be almost welcome.
Suddenly Patty leaned close to him and brought him down to
realities. She muttered:
“You must get the Albesons off the farm, somehow.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. You’re a lawyer. Think up something. They must not
stay there. They must not suspect. They know too much as it is.”
“All right,” he sighed. He realized the shrewdness of her wisdom,
but the problem she posed dazed him.
The rest of the way he beat his thought on an anvil, turning and
twisting it and hammering till his brain seemed to turn red in his skull.
What simpler thing than to ask them to leave his farm? But they
were such simple souls that they would be as hard to manage as
sheep. And they must be sent away for a long time. He and Patty
and Immy must manage without a servant. But no sacrifice was too
great.
The train ran all the way to Kensico now. Here they encountered
trouble in finding someone to drive them over the unbroken roads,
but at length they bribed a man to undertake the voyage.
The horses picked their way with insect-like motions, and went so
slowly that the bells snapped and clinked instead of jingling. The
runners of the sleigh mumbled and left long grooves in the white.
The rain of flakes upon the eyelids had the effect of a spell; it was
like this new thing everybody was talking about, “hypnotism,” a mere
disguise for the worn-out fraud of mesmerism.
Surging along in a state betwixt sleep and waking, RoBards’ mind
fell into a sing-song of babble.
Every man has in him at least one poem and RoBards, like most
of his profession, had a love of exalted words. He lacked the
magniloquence of Webster (whose recent death had swathed most
of New York’s buildings in black); but he could not resist even in a
foreclosure proceeding or the most sordid criminal case an
occasional flight into the realm betwixt prose and poesy.
And now he lulled himself with an inchoate apostrophe to the
snow:
“O Snow! O down from what vast swan-breast torn? from what
vast swan-breast torn, to flutter, to flutter through the air and—and—
What swan, then, was it? is it? that died, that dies in silence, in grief
more like a song than—than silence: a song that has—that knows—
that finds no words, no tune, no melody, no tune; but only feeling,
ecstatic anguish, despair that faints, that droops, that swoons, and
lies as meek, as white, as white, as still as marble. O Snow, thou
quell’st—O Snow that quells the world, the countless sorrows of the
world, the plaints, the hungers, shames, to one calm mood, one
White. O Peace! O flawless Peace! This snow must be the drifting
plumage from the torn wide wings, the aching breast of heaven’s
own dove, the Holy Ghost.”
He was as lost in his shredded rhythms as in the snow; as muffled
in himself as in the heavy robe and his greatcoat, and his thick cap.
He had not yet thought of a way to exile the Albesons. He had
surrendered himself as utterly to the weather as the hills themselves.
The road was gone, the walls rubbed out, the trees were but white
mushrooms. Everything was smoothed and rounded and numbed.
Immy and her mother were snowed under and never spoke. Even
the driver made no sound except an occasional chirrup or a lazy, “Git
ap there!”
Then they were suddenly at Tuliptree. The snow had blurred the
landmarks, and the driver had to wade thigh-deep to reach the gate,
and excavate a space to swing it open.
The Albesons had neither seen nor heard them come, and the
pounding on the door and the stamping of feet gave them their first
warning.
They were so glad of the end of their solitude, and put to such a
scurry to open bedrooms and provide fires and supper, that they had
little time for questions beyond, “Haow air ye all, anyway?” “Haow’ve
ye ben?” “Haow’s all the rest of the folks?” “Did ye ever see sich
snow?”
Mrs. Albeson embraced Immy with a reminiscent pity, and praised
her for putting on flesh and not looking like the picked chicken most
the girls looked like nowadays.
This gave RoBards his first idea and he spoke briskly:
“She’s not so well as she looks. Too much gayety in the city.
Doctor says she’s got to have complete rest and quiet. Mrs. RoBards
and I are pretty well worn out, too; so we decided just to cut and run.
Besides, I didn’t like to leave the farm alone all winter.”
“Alone all winter?” Albeson echoed. “Ain’t we here?”
“That’s what I came up to see you about. I have a client who lent a
big sum of money on a Georgia plantation, slaves and crops and all.
He’s afraid he’s been swindled—afraid the land’s no good—wants an
honest opinion from somebody that knows soil when he sees it. So
I’m sending you. And I’m sending your wife along to keep you out of
mischief.”
“But Georgia! Gosh, that’s a million miles, ain’t it?”
“It’s nothing. You get the railroad part of the way. And it’s like
summer down there.”
The farmer and his wife and Patty and Immy all stared at RoBards,
and he felt as if he were staring at himself.
The odd thing about it was that the inspiration had come to him
while he was on his feet talking. He thought best on his feet talking.
That was his native gift and his legal practice had developed it.
While he had sat in the train and in the sleigh and cudgeled his
wits, nothing happened. Yet all the while there was indeed a client of
his anxious about a remote investment; he only remembered him
when he began to talk. The gigantic swindle known as the Pine
Barren speculation had sold to innocent dupes in the North
thousands of acres of land that was worthless, and hundreds of
thousands of acres that did not even exist. The result was pitiful
hardship for hard-working, easy-believing immigrants and a bad
name for legitimate Georgian transactions.
The Albesons were more afraid of this expedition into the unknown
than if they had been asked to join the vain expedition Mr. Grinnell,
the merchant, had recently sponsored to search the Arctic Zone for
Sir John Franklin and his lost crew.
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Acknowledgments ......................................................................... vii

1. Landscapes of Investigation ........................................................... 3

5. Foregrounds and the Politics of Learning Obstacles ....................59

8. Inclusion-Exclusion: An Explosive Problem................................. 95

10. Ghettoizing and Globalization: A Challenge for Mathematics

14. Mathematics as Discourse ...........................................................199

19. Explosive Problems in Mathematics Education...........................283

I want to thank Bolema, Educational Studies in Mathematics, For the Learning

Critique As Uncertainty, pages vii–viii.

Critique as Uncertainty, pages ix–xv.

Penteado and elaborated further by Denival Biotto Filho—can be related back to

I have found it helpful to think of mathematics as discourse. Naturally, I do not

In his observations in English classrooms, Cotton (1998) noticed that a mathemat-

Critique as Uncertainty, pages 3–20.

which provides resources for making investigations. Project work represents a

FIGURE 1. The good old table of numbers.

FIGURE 2. Other figures to be translated.

FIGURE 3. A different set up for the table of numbers.

teresting” rectangle-translatable functions exist? If we succeed in ﬁnding such a

Tradition of exercises Landscapes of investigation

FIGURE 4. Milieus of learning.

of references, I will generally be alluding to meaning production in mathematics

(27a – 14b) + (23a + 5b) – 11a =

(16 × 25) – (18 × 23) =

(32 × 41) – (34 × 39) =

Type (2) is characterized as a landscape of investigation located in numbers and

FIGURE 5. The terrain of the horse race.

It has been considered irrelevant to make actual observations of how math-

everybody will pass. Furthermore, this exam supports an investigative approach

Moving between Different Learning Milieus

“optimal” route cannot be determined in advance but has to be decided upon by

Generalisation: Culture of the Mathematics Classroom

The Risk Zone

Richards, J. (1991). Mathematical discussion. In E. von Glasersfeld (Ed.), Radical con-

HOW TO DRAG WITH

Critique as Uncertainty, pages 21–36.

The Borderland Position

By a borderland school, we mean a school positioned close to the Fourth

Mathematics Education, Inclusion, and ICT

THE tenderest moods of devotion and shared sorrows alternated

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

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