CHAPTER 1: Intercultural Positioning in Mathematics

I recently heard a teacher tell a story about one of her strong students. It was near the end of a class and the student had finished her mathematics homework. The student wanted to borrow a calculator from the science classroom so she could work on her science homework. The teacher said, “We have calculators here,” to which the student replied, “No, I need a scientific calculator.” This humorous incident, which left the teacher dumbfounded, is reminiscent of my experiences teaching mathematics. Students seemed not to make connections among the school subjects. In a culture with increasing fragmentation and specialization, such schismatic constructs are not very surprising, though they continue to be disturbing.