The Power of a Round Dance

 I have been living and working with Naskapi and Innu people for 4 years. I remember how amazed I was at first by the ethnomathematical gems I would find while partaking in my hosts’ cultural activities or in my daily activities of living in a remote community. I was amazed because I realized that there was so much more to mathematics than what I learned in school and what I was trained to teach. Today, I am a changed mathematician as a result of these gems I have experienced during my time in Kawawachikamach.

This poem is inspired by mathematics I found in Naskapi culture, and my integration within the community. The number of syllables in each line follows the rhythm of a round dance song we usually dance to.

One, two, three, four,

People mobilize to the beat. Points―they all become,

Centrifugal force is the beat.



One, two, three, four,

The curve transforms into an arc,

More points anchor,

The arc grows into a circle.



One, two, three, four,

They are inviting me.

Can I do this?

I’m scared, but the rhythm flows.



Paaikw, niisu, nistu, naaw,

We orbit together―

A flawed circle.

In, we all play a role.



Paaikw, niisu, nistu, naaw, 

One, two, three, four, 

Aastim niimutaw:

You come, we dance, and we stand strong.



Let the beat move you.



This is the power of a round dance.



Note: Paaikw, niisu, nistu, naaw, and Aastim niimutaw are in Naskapi, an Indigenous North American language. The English translations appear in the lines below the Naskapi expressions in stanza 5.

Week 10 Activity

I did not have ropes at home, so I had to be creative with the material this week. This is my fishing net. I would have liked to try out different natural fibers we have in our environment, but for now, there is still too much snow.

I think I would enjoy making the whole fish net because I find working with my hands to create is a soothing activity after a long day teaching. Just being in the present moment and following a pattern impede the million thoughts I would normally have about teaching. This shows that bringing the arts/embodiment in the classroom offers more than a great learning experience, but can also be beneficial for mental health.

As for the mathematics connections, I could see using this for topics like area/perimeter, shapes, similar/equivalent figures, patterns and potentially algebraic patterns. I would love to partner with one of my colleagues in elementary to build some fishing net because of the mathematics connection we could make and because many of our students learn to make them during their childhood. Almost all of our students fish, so we could even ask students to try them out and come back with ideas on how they could improve their nets. An activity like this is aligned with the First Peoples’ Principles of Learning and reflects how traditional knowledge is built in the community.

Teaching mathematics and its relation to consumerism

In the excerpt from Kallis (2014), the author reflects on how North American cities are built for being a consumer. The author argues that we should take a step back and reflect on where the things we buy come from and that we should reflect on our relationship with consumerism.

“As our newer North American cities and towns are designed for the automobile, so too they are designed for the human being and consumer (Kallis, 2014, pp.20).

When I read this sentence, I started wondering if Schefferville, a remote town, is also designed for the human being a consumer. In the town, we have very few stores: a grocery store, a depanneur, two restaurants, and a hardware store. On the surface, it looks like the town is the exception to the author’s argument. Although, now that Internet reaches every house in the town, most of us partake in online shopping. I remember when Canada post went on strike (the only post service that reaches us), we were struggling with not being able to buy anything. Thus, yes, even remote areas without many stores are impacted by the need of being a consumer.

“[S]ometimes the options are limited and funds are scarce (Kallis, 2014, pp.20).”

This statement resonated with me because I struggled with the lack of more ecological options when I first arrived in Schefferville. Here, our grocery store is small and does not have that many product options. We do not have variety or choices between different products. For example, I cannot buy dried beans and have to rely on canned beans. Also, most of the fruits and veggies come wrapped in individual packaging to keep them fresher (since their journey is long).

It is a shame that it is difficult to make more ecological decisions in our town knowing that Naskapi and Innu used to live with a balanced and healthy relationship with the Earth. Nowadays, they cannot even hunt caribou often enough to not have to buy meat at the grocery store. And because they do not have access to hunting, very few are able to skin the caribou and collect the skin to create a piece of clothing. It makes me wonder what and how they taught their youth to pass the values of interrelatedness with the Earth. It makes me think of Gatarek’s et al. (2025) argument for the need of a STEM curriculum that is less centered on the human and challenges the conception that the human is superior. If we had a curriculum that includes more elements to foster respect for living things and looks into where the things we buy are coming from, we might be able to teach our youth to become more than consumers.

“Once we can begin to visualize this reality, we need to put the mandates in place to make sure to support the changes we want to make (Kallis, 2014, pp.21).”

When I read that sentence, I immediately thought about education being the backbone of the support for the changes we want to make. In What is education for?, Orr (2010) mentions the need for reshaping our education system to make sure students understand whole systems, can make clever decisions about long range, and that knowledge comes with the responsibility of making sure it is well used. I believe that such an education system could help our society to move away from consumerism by giving the tools to individuals to make choices for a better future.

How would this look like in a classroom?

First, a simple step we could take is to spend more time outside building relationships with the place around us. After all, Leopold mentions beautifully that “we can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in (2001, pp.179)”. Another simple step could be to bring more social and environmental justice activities in the classroom to foster students’ empathy, critical thinking, and a sense of agency. Finally, teaching students how to build different objects themselves could share a strong message that we might not need to buy something new because there is a way to make it ourselves. They might even be surprised about how fun or how easy creating can be!

Questions:
What do you think we can do in the classroom to reduce our dependance on consumerism?
What object(s) would you like to try building in the classroom with your students?


References

Gatarek, B., Langont, S & Martinovic, D. (2025). Humanizing STEM: Integrating Humane Education and Biocentric Values. [Conference presentation]. MACAS, New Brunswick, Canada.

Kallis. S. (2014). Common threads: weaving community through collaborative ecoart. New Society Publisher.

Leopold, A. (2001). Sand county almanac: With essays on conservation. Oxford University PressOrr, D. W. (2010). Hope Is an Imperative: The Essential David Orr. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-017-0

Week 9 activity: Exploring and noticing with weaving

This week I decided to try weaving for the first time. I tried to notice some mathematical processes/concepts while I was weaving. Below are 3 ‘stops’ I had while weaving. There were more stop moments, but I selected these for my post.

1: Number sense and visualizing numbers in a different way

While I was weaving, I knew that because my pattern at the end of the row was ending with the second color (not the one I started with), I knew I had an even number of rows without even counting them. Then, on the third row, when I was experimenting with a different pattern, I ended my row with 2 pink. But I knew that this was impossible following the pattern I was following because I had an even number of rows. In my mind, I was able to visualize the pattern I should have (1 pink, 2 black, 2 pink, 2 black, 1 pink), thus indirectly giving me the numbers of rows I had (8).

When I thought about it, I found my prediction interesting and decided to count the rows to see if my prediction was right, and it was! When I stopped knowing I had made a mistake somewhere, my brain was actually counting in a different way than I usually count (one, two, three, four, etc.) Now, I wonder if expert weavers have a different way of visualizing counting and numbers. I also wonder if having this visualization of numbers/number sense impacts how they see the world in general.

2: Very big number and length of a thread

I noticed that my sewing teacher is much better than I am at approximating the length of thread I need for how much I need to sew. I have not mastered this skill yet, so when I cut my thread, I usually get three times the amount of thread I think I need because I tend to underestimate this quantity. To do my weaving, I used some old shoelaces that I keep as a toy for my cats. At first, it seemed like long threads would be more than enough to cover the cardboard, but I underestimated again. Although, I think that the more I practice this skill (approximation of thread I need for bigger quantities) the better I get to visualize the length of the thread when weaved/braided/sewn. In the last course, we saw that the human’s inability to feel large numbers is a problem when we think about our relationships with the living things and the Earth (Renert, 2011). I believe that weaving/sewing/breading could help us feel and visualize large numbers better by seeing and feeling those long threads becoming a more manageable size. I also believe that practicing the skill of visualizing how much thread needed for a certain work can help develop an ability to understand large numbers better.

3: Retroaction from the art and what it can teach

Maria Letsiou explains that doing ceramic work creates a meaningful environment to learn, because while someone is creating a ceramic sculpture, the sculpture speaks back to the artist, offering opportunities for lucky discoveries (Chronaki et al., 2025). When I was weaving, I had many moments where I was able to tell myself: “Wow, I finally experienced what it means to have an artwork speaking back to me!” The first example is when I knew I made mistakes; the piece did not look ‘right’. Another example is that the more I was weaving, the more I felt how sturdy the artwork was becoming. I felt how sturdy it would become the more I continued the artwork. I also felt how flexible the piece was even though it was becoming sturdier. The piece taught me the physics of weaving and how useful weaved objects can be since they are certainly sturdy, while keeping a good flexibility, avoiding them to break easily. In this case, this would have been my serendipitous discovery.

References:

Chronaki, A., Gerofsky, S., Nemirovsky, R., Ryan, U., Lazaridour, E., Letsiou, M., Torretta, N. B. & Hillgren, P. (2025). Circular movements of healing with maths, arts and craft: Reimagining disciplinary transversals for learning. In Proceedings of MACAS 2025, University of Moncton, NB.

Renert, M. (2011). Mathematics for life: Sustainable mathematics education. For the Learning of Mathematics, 31(1), 20-29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41319547

Arts/crafts and productive struggle in mathematics

In Highly Unlikely Triangles and Other Impossible Figures in Bead Weaving, Fisher (2015) explores how to build highly unlikely shapes with beads. This idea came from the impossible triangle first drawn by Oscar Reutersvärd.

This is the impossible triangle made possible by twisting the beads.

The exploration of the impossible triangle led the artist to try different impossible shapes. The artist successfully created an impossible square, an impossible hexagon, and other impossible figures, even one that was never drawn before (impossible polyhedron)!

“An impossible triangle and other similar impossible figures are only impossible to construct in 3D if we assume the edges are straight and the connections are right angles (Fischer, 2015, p.100).”

This quote reminded me of Doolittle’s (2018) argument for a diversity of geometry, ones that allow us to get ‘off the grid’. In this article, because the artist was able to think outside of the grid (not assuming the edges and angles are straight), the artist was able to create an impossible triangle. This is a very good example of how the grid can fail to represent realities sometimes, and that other geometry could help us open our mind and be a more ‘truthful’ representation of a reality. Because the artist decided to follow unconventional geometry, this creative exercise led to the exploration of mathematics not many thought about before (we know it by the given name unlikely figures!). I wonder if we could reach this level of creativity by solely solving problems. It feels like bringing explorative arts activity in the classroom is more approachable than problem-solving to encourage students’ creativity. Since students are not enough reminded of the importance of creativity in mathematics, they often get really anxious when I ask them to be creative. Then, if we start with those types of activities, we can change the classroom’s mindset to have students who embrace creativity. When they do recognize the importance of creativity, we might see more and more creative approach to problem solving. I believe that creativity is one of the most important qualities a mathematician can have because we know that many mathematical concepts/theorems that we use today came from mathematician who dared thinking outside of the box.



“The right photo in Figure 3 shows my second attempt, the first successful highly unlikely triangle (Fischer, 2015, p. 101).”

This quote resonated with me because it reminded me of the concept of productive struggle I have been looking into for my school this week. Productive struggle, define as overcoming a challenge with the purpose of learning or progressing, is important for students to truly learn and understand the concept, rather than just learning procedures (Sangiovanni et al., 2020). Although, many students do not see the importance of struggling to learn. In my classrooms, this looks like students who are giving right away just because they do not know how to get to the answer right away or do not understand a concept right away. Because I teach grade 9-10-11, it is really difficult for me to break this habit since my students are so used to it and never had to struggle that much to get good grades before.

Thus, I think that using mathematics activities based on arts and craft could help me re-story my students’ idea of learning. In the article, the artist was not successful in the first attempt, but learned from it and was successful in the second attempt. I am assuming that Carolyn Yackel, from the video How Orbifolds Inform Shibori Dyeing (G4G Celebration, 2021), and Uyen Nguyen, from the video Origami fashion (YOUmediaChicago, 2021), also struggle a lot to be able to have such in-depth knowledge about their different patterns (origami clothing or dyeing). All three artists had something else in common: their passion kept pushing them forward. Artistic creation might not develop this type of passion in all of our students, but if it does reach some of them to some degree, it should be accessible to them. If passion makes my student learn to struggle and understand its importance, it is something certainly worth using in my classroom.



Questions

What mathematics do you see in beading and creating 3D shapes with beading?

How do you foster creativity in your classrooms?




References

Doolittle, E. (2018). Off the grid. In Gerofsky, S. (Ed.), Geometries of liberation. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72523-9_7

Fisher, G. (2015). Highly unlikely triangles and other impossible figures in bead weaving. Proceedings of Bridges. (pp.99-106)

G4G Celebration. (2021, January 27th). Carolyn Yackel - How Orbifolds Inform Shibori Dyeing - CoM Oct 2020. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjtc9LJ5ItI

Sangiovanni, J. J., Katt, S. & Dykema, K. J. (2020). Productive struggle: A 6-point action plan for fostering perseverance. Corwin.

YOUmediaChicago. (2021, January 07th). Origami Fashion with Uyen Nguyen Part 1. [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4AoN1DtH6I

Draft presentation

 Below is the link to get access to my presentation's folder on Google Drive. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mMtoQEkHZbtP8MpESo9VSOACQFBXMsPX?usp=drive_link

Week 8 activity: Mathematical poems

This week was very cold, so I had to stay inside for most of it. The poem below represents me looking at the land through the window.

Dreaming through the window on a cold Wednesday

Wind blowing over spirits

Blowing wind spirits over

Blowing spirits wind over

Spirits blowing over wind

Spirits over blowing wind

Over spirits wind blowing

Over wind spirits blowing

Wind over blowing spirits

Wind blowing over spirits

The Gift of Love

A

hand

Holding

my cold hand

On a summer day

The sun shines through the gray clouds

Firstly, I really liked to be able to connect my whole self (body, mind, and emotions) with mathematics because we have so few opportunities to do so. Furthermore, I enjoy poetry and I am always amazed by how poets can be impressively creative with the patterns they use to write and express different meanings. Before this week, I never made the connections between these patterns and doing mathematics, so it was an enlightening moment.

Secondly, after trying out some poems, I discovered some mathematical thinking processes that can be involved in poetry. I had to guess and check, count, try out and verify my work, work systematically and find an efficient way to record my trials. Sadly, I used my eraser a lot, so I do not have all the attempts, but you can see in this picture my original poem.

I decided that I did not like some of the combinations with the part ‘a tree’, so I started the first few lines again. And then, I changed the different parts and tried different combinations (I erased a lot) for the first 3 lines and finally liked one enough to continue writing the whole poem.

To make a connection with my article this week, the process that I used is a demonstration of how I used knowledge (patterns) in a dynamic way: using it to carry a meaning, trying out ideas and verifying them, simplifying it to make my work easier, mentally visualizing the pattern, etc.

Finally, I believe that many of my students would like to do an activity like this one (writing a mathematical poem). Like me, they would like to feel human while doing mathematics. Also, like mentioned in Writing and reading multiplicity in the universe: engagement with mathematics through poetry, poems can be a way to feel safe while engaging with mathematics (Radakovic et al., 2018). I have many students who demonstrate math anxiety while problem-solving, even if the problem is open and have multiple ways to get to the answer. Making them engage with mathematics through a poem could help them not feel this anxiety while doing mathematics, at least for this activity. Finally, poems can also be a way to connect mathematics to students’ world (Radakovic et al., 2018). In grade 9-10-11, there are not that many concepts that we can connect to my students’ daily life. Using mathematics within poetry could give them a rare chance to make this connection.

Reference:

Radakovic, N., Jagger, S., & Jao, L. (2018). Writing and reading multiplicity in the uni-verse: Engagements with mathematics through poetry. For the Learning of Mathematics, 38(1), 2-6.