ABSTRACT
This chapter is located within the specific context of the South African education system at a time of general optimism following sweeping political and social change in the country. It is based on a paper given in 1994 to the first national conference of the newly formed Association for Mathematics Education in South Africa (AMESA). The previous occasion at which I had presented a paper at a national conference of South African teachers of mathematics had been in 1986 against the background of a very different and contested political context 1 . On that occasion there were two specific issues that I tried to address. My first area of concern centred around the absence of public critical voices in mathematics education in a societal and school context of enormous political conflict. I attempted to begin an examination of some of the ways that ‘alternative mathematics programmes’ might be conceived, including the introduction of a non-Eurocentric historical perspective, as well as the challenging of the myths of South African society with a different reality (Breen, 1986a). In my second paper at the 1986 conference, I explored some different teaching possibilities under the headings of investigations, do-talk-and-record activities, and ‘deeper structures’ (Breen, 1986b). In terms of methodology both papers were making a strong appeal to move away from harsh authoritarian teaching methods in the classroom and to move towards a far more exploratory learning-centred approach to teaching.
