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However, at present the social nature of mathematics remains a well-kept secret especially amongst the wider lay public who firmly believe that mathematics consists of a body of ‘objects’, or facts and skills, universally recognizable, and transmissible within a classroom setting (if only teachers were more effective). , Australia). Unfortunately, the widespread acceptance of ‘objective’ mathematics has, in my view, reinforced a transmission pedagogy. Such a pedagogy is already regarded as necessary to teach a syllabus perceived as heavily loaded with difficult content.

Of the mathematical proof which had been the focus of their drama. In Burton (1984), I showed Challenging ways of knowing 32 pupils’ narratives (although I was not, then, calling them such) in response to the challenge Crossing the River, which stated: ‘Two men and two boys want to cross a river. None of them can swim and they only have one canoe. They can all paddle but the canoe will only hold one man or two boys. ’ Two children in a class of 9- to 10-year-olds, described their resolution in language: Meanwhile, three other children represented their resolution of the same problem visually: Mathematics, and its learning, as narrative 33 The Narratives of the Mathematics Classroom Pupil Narratives—Mathematics Narrative assumes a shared discourse, but it also assumes dialogic negotiation of meaning: The establishing of ‘dialogue’ as an epistemic concept is implied by giving up the thesis of the homogeneity of knowledge, and accepting that contradictory knowledge claims can rightly be made with the consequence that knowledge conflict becomes a reality.

Heat energy as a commodity to be purchased. In addition, there is a lack of articulation between the scientific notion of energy as presented in conventional science courses and the understandings that elderly people invoke in the management of it. The relationship to science of the elderly referred to above was, by design, that of ‘user’. For these users (and, by extrapolation, most people) science was less an outstanding manifestation of human curiosity about the natural world, a conceptual cathedral of awe-inspiring construction, than a quarry to be raided, a repository of resources which might further their particular endeavours and assist in the solution or amelioration of particular problems and concerns.