Essay #118: Vincent Bouchard & Asia Matthews, ‘An Anarchist Approach to the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum’

About this episode

Vincent Bouchard and Asia Matthews explore how anarchism can reshape the teaching of mathematics at the university level.

In this essay, Vincent Bouchard and Asia Matthews discuss how contemporary anarchism can be used as a framework to rethink how we teach mathematics at the university level. At its core, anarchism aims at aligning thoughts and actions, and we argue that an anarchist viewpoint on undergraduate mathematics may offer a path toward a more equitable, horizontal and human-centred approach. This is not an essay about math: this is about how it is taught, and why it matters! Vincent Bouchard is Professor in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Alberta (personal website: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~vbouchar/). Vincent's publication list is freely available on arXiv.org at https://arxiv.org/a/bouchard_v_1.html . Asia Matthews is a professor of mathematics and interdisciplinary educator. She worked at Quest University Canada until recently, and is now a free agent. You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiamatthews/. Asia and Vincent's recent publication, "An Anarchist Approach to the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum", on which this essay is based, was published in the Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology…

People in this episode

Guests: Vincent Bouchard, Asia Matthews

Topics covered

• anarchism
• mathematics education
• university curriculum
• equity in education
• human-centered approach

Keywords

• anarchism
• mathematics curriculum
• education reform
• equity
• horizontal approach

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Alberta, Quest University Canada, Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Anarchism Research Group, Anarchist Studies

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