Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association
Volume 48 Issue 2, June 2011
12 – 16
George Gadanidis
What do young students know about mathematicians, and how do we find out what they know? Picker and Berry (200 l , 202) suggest that finding out more about students’ images of mathematics can help teachers “understand their attitudes toward, misconceptions about, and opinions of the subject.” They also suggest that “one way to discover these attitudes is to ask your students to create a drawing of a mathematician.” We followed Picker and Berry’s advice and asked 18 students in a Grade 2 class and 17 students in a Grade 3 class to draw mathematicians at work.
