Walpiri counting

The Walpiri groups has been here for thousands of years and only recently have we made a connect to how this group relate their mathematics to the Western mathematical world. Mathematic to the old people dont exist but today their children or grandchildren have been taught two different ways - Walpiri learning and Western Learning. For example; the old Walpiri pople don't use exact time but the positioning of the sun, they only have a word for number one and use vocabulary than mere number names, by using many to count his children.

Just as the Antrophologists discover in the video of the Walpiri people, also in recent research supports the idea that "mathematics has a cultural history, but also that from different cultural history come what can only be described as different mathematics." (Bishop 1998)

Bishop has developed a thesis that "mathematics must now be understood as a kind of cultural knowledge, which all cultures generate but whichn eed not necessarily' look' the same from one cultural group to another. Just as all human cultures generate language, religious beliefs, rituals, food-producing, techniques,e tc., so it seems do all human cultures generate mathematics. Mathematics is a pan-human phenomenon. Moreover, just as each cultural group generates it s own lan guage, religious, belief, etc., so it seems that each cultural group is capable of generating its own mathematics. (Bishop 1998)

History has many avenue that has not been discovered. When I listen to this clip it widen my thinking to how we look at mathematics. Is it just adding or subtracting? How can we teach these problems? This clip has widen my thinking to how people interpret things differently. For example if a student who grew up in urban school had to move to remote area, how would he couple with being place in a school where 99% of people didn't speak english? Would his learning decrease because of no culture understanding? I myself am aboriginal but to be placed in a culture where you do not have an knowledge or understanding can be a big disadvantage.

Reference:

Bishop, A. (1988). Mathematics Education in It's Cultural Context. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3482573