Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association
Volume 47 Issue 1, December 2009
5 – 8
Mathematics Education for a Global Village
Carrie Watt
In 1897, the tormented writer and artist Paul Gauguin painted a vast painting that he titled D’Ou Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Ou Allons Nous? (Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?). Historian Ronald Wright used Gauguin’s questions to frame his book An Illustrated Short History of Progress (2006 ), in which he warned of the inherent danger in humankind’s progress. Wright began with the example of our progress in weapon technology and commented, “When the bang we can make can blow up our world, we have made rather too much progress” (p 5). I share my experience in wrestling with Gauguin’s questions. My vision of a global village (McLuhan, 1962) informs my decisions as a mathematics teacher and leads to where I hope we are going.
