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NURTURING COLLECTIVE ARTISTRY

Jennifer Markides Craig Dwyer Mike Craig

University of Calgary, Faculty of Education Mathematics for Teaching 2013

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors like to sincerely thank all of our professors and advisors who have oriented us through the courses we have taken during the last two years. This has been an eyeopening and career changing re-conceptualization for the three of us. Thank you to to University of Calgary and our advisor Brent Davis for providing the conditions for our collective learning to emerge. Thanks to Lissa D'Amour for taking the time to know each of us as learners and challenging and perplexing us to re-imagine ourselves. Thanks to Moshe Renert for deep friendship, inspiration, encouraging words, and giving us occasion to march to our own beat. Thank you to Anne Watson and John Mason for helping us to remember what it is like to be mathematical learners. Thanks to Elizabeth Mowat for continually pushing and challenging our thinking. Thanks to Steven Khan for a keen editing eye and encouragement. Thanks to our cohort classmates, you above all are the reason we are here doing what we love, and chasing our own questions. We could not ask for a better group. Special thanks to Amy Tetz and Emily Brown for speedy emails, kind words, and keen editing eyes. Craig - To my family, Hiromi and Tabito, for support and giving me time and space to think, write and sleep. You make my world richer and our wanderings together are just beginning. You inspire me to be the best I can possibly be, and even when I am not, you still love and supportive me. Mike - To my wonderful family for their never ending encouragement, love and support. To my better half Travis for standing beside me throughout the writing of this and making sure I always had balance. To my friends Brian, Cheryl and Heidi for being ears and sounding boards. And to Theresa, who first pointed me at the world of complexity. I am truly fortunate to be part of this collective. Jennifer - To Derek, my husband, for the rich and engaging discussions outside of class. You managed to push my thinking while supporting me on our journey through this program together. To our boys, Ashwin and Evren, for forgiving us the class time and being good for the babysitters. And to our family and friends who were always willing to pitch in on days we presented or had assignments coming due. It took a village.

CHAPTER 1 An Introduction to Nurturing Collective Artistry


Michael Craig, Jennifer Markides, and Craig Dwyer

At any moment in the classroom, there are a multitude of factors at play in the teaching, learning and knowing of mathematics. We, as educators, are charged with the responsibility of creating lessons that will set up the best conditions for students learning. As Einstein (date unknown) famously said, I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. Some lessons in life, like tying ones shoes, can be modeled and practiced until the skill is learned. Other concepts are more complicated and even abstract, yet the goal of teaching remains the same - to provide experiences that will support the development of knowledge. We have an array of sources to draw from when determining how we are going to teach: personal experiences, teacher preparatory classes, educational philosophy courses, mentors and colleagues to name a few. Often, we have great autonomy in deciding how we prepare a lesson and we also possess the authority to change course as we see fit. With great power, comes great responsibility - Voltaire (Beuchot, 1940). Throughout the course of our careers, it is important that we do not lose sight of the earnest pursuits that our jobs entail. We must strive for better practice while accepting that
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this goal is and will always be a moving target. There appears to be no one right way to teach mathematics; however we learn from sharing, research, stories, and experiences, in the hopes of gaining insight to the possibilities of better teaching practices. Through our collective efforts, we are attempting to learn both with and from each other. Our experiences and learnings inform our understandings and knowledge of teaching. While many paths have led us to this point, we have some common goals and shared beliefs about teaching. Our individual convictions have coalesced in the writing of Nurturing Collective Artistry. Independently and co-implicitly within the complex interconnective web of relationships, each of the words carries with it a host of associations and entailments, metaphors, diverse perspectives, and a plentitude of possibilities. Mapping this in a linear progression of scholarly articles seems problematic. Instead, we would like to invoke the image of a network. Each term will be explored by three different individuals with different histories and styles. They will be presented sequentially. However, this sequential presentation is a function of the human senses. What we hope to imagine in this collection of articles is a network of connections. We hope to see how three very different people with diverse interests can occasion a network of thoughts that illuminate the whole. To begin, picture if you will, a network comprised of nodes interconnected in a web of associations. For the purposes of this paper, we will focus on five nodes essential to our current discussion. We will each represent one of three nodes: nurturing, collective, and artistry through a written exploration. We will represent the nodes as they situate in the world around us. As conscious beings personifying each node, we connect with and affect the world around us. To take ourselves out of this network, we feel, would lead to detachment and a lack of authenticity. Also, picture the node at the centre of the research questions surrounding Mathematics for Teaching, and another node representing
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Complexity in Education. We are, the three of us, embedded in these research questions, and informed by complexity as a framework for education (Davis, 2008). It is the interplay and dynamic exchange of these five nodes that has led us to a guiding question: If a Profound Understanding of Emergent Mathematics and an open way of being are at the root of the mathematics that teachers need to know, then how might that knowledge be enacted within a classroom? One answer to this question that we propose and explore is the idea of nurturing collective artistry. Each of us intends to explore this answer of sorts by taking on the voice and perspective of one of the aspects of the answer. In a recursive manner, we will then respond to each paper in the voice of that perspective, exploring each others spaces from the perspective of our own. Finally, we will loop back again and reflect on the reflections, making further connections in the vast network. As a final step, we hope to write, with a collective voice, what our thoughts and feelings of the entire process have been. In this way we hope, not to provide a reductive or definitive answer to the rich complexity of Mathematics for Teaching but instead to further elaborate the field. We hope to open this space and see what emerges, and in which directions the field evolves. We begin however, by examining the five nodes, their networks of associations and the affordances they entail. Node one: the evolution of the M4T question In continuing to draw on the metaphor of a network of relationships, the node which could be said to represent the domain of mathematics-for-teaching could also represent an evolving network or system; fractal in nature, self-similar and scaleindependent. From a historical perspective, it might appear to be a linear progression of causality moving from one idea to another, albeit with minor trails and tracks diverging from it, ultimately leading to the juncture where we situate ourselves now and yet along
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that path the domain of mathematics-for-teaching itself has been questioned, reinterpreted, and transformed by significant ideas encountered along the way. In this way, the evolution of the domain is both linear and emergent.

Begel, 1979: A Surprising Discovery The evolution of the mathematics-for-teaching question began with a landmark study by Begel in 1979. Prior to this point it seemed to be taken for granted that it is important for a teacher to have a thorough understanding of the subject matter being taught (Begel, 1979, p. 28). In this study, which was primarily focused on a the question of how to determine teacher effectiveness, Begel concluded that while it "is widely believed that the more a teacher knows about his subject matter, the more effective he will be as a teacher, [the] empirical literature suggestthat once a teacher reaches a certain level of understanding of the subject matter, then further understanding contributes nothing to student achievement (p. 51). This would prove to be significant for two reasons. The first was that prior to this point, teacher preparation and training was based on ensuring that the teacher knew as much as possible about their subject matter. This was based on the assumption that all an effective teacher needed to know to teach mathematics was more advanced mathematics. The second significant finding was a lack of any definitive answer as to what did constitute effective teaching. As a result, Begel argued, we are left simply with the conclusion that "the effects of a teachers subject matter knowledge and attitudes on student learning seem to be far less powerful that most of us had realized (Begel, 1979, p. 54). We are also left with the question: What mathematics do teachers need to know to teach mathematics?

Shulman, 1986: Content, Pedagogical Content, and Curricular Knowledge A significant perspective in answering this question would come from Shulman in 1986. Shulman began to draw a distinction between the mathematical content and general pedagogical knowledge required by teachers (Shulman, 1986). He suggested that there were three kinds of knowledge required by teachers: Content Knowledge, the amount and organization of knowledge per se in the mind of the teacher (p.9); Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) which goes beyond knowledge of the subject matter per se to the dimension of the subject matter knowledge for teaching (p.9); and Curricular Knowledge, a broad category encompassing programs, materials, and the relative benefits and disadvantages of the use of any curriculum, techniques or program materials based on the given situations (p.10). In the third, Shulman also noted a necessity to be aware of both the lateral and vertical aspects of curriculum knowledge; understanding the full scope and sequence within a particular discipline and the connections between other content knowledge at the same level. As a result, Shulman suggested that effective teacher preparation would entail propositional knowledge, case knowledge and strategic knowledge (Shulman, 1986). The teacher is not only a master of procedure but also of content and rationale, and capable of explaining why something is done (p.12). As for the determination of teacher effectiveness, this would be provided in the form of assessment by members of the profession, not legislators or laypersons (p.12).

Liping Ma, 1999: Profound Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics Shulmans framework would seem to have sufficed as an answer to the question for over a decade until Liping Ma, a researcher in China, conducted a study comparing the effectiveness of teachers in both the United States and China. According to Ma, the teachers from the United States, despite having the pedagogical knowledge suggested by
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Shulman, were less effective than their Chinese counterparts. Additionally, she states that a teachers comprehensive knowledge of a topic may contribute to students opportunities to learn it, (Ma, 1999, p.52) and that even "their pedagogical knowledge could not make up for their ignorance of the concept (p.60). Ma would go on to describe a model for the knowledge required by teachers of mathematics as a "deep, vast, and thorough understanding" (p.104). Coining the term a profound understanding of fundamental mathematics (PUFM), Ma suggested that this could be accomplished through the study of teaching materials, learning from colleagues, learning from students, and learning by doing (Ma, 1999). She emphasized that this understanding would entail the Connectedness, Multiple Perspectives, Basic Ideas, and Longitudinal Coherence of mathematical content (Ma, 1999), the last being comparable to Shulman's sense of vertical curricular knowledge. For Ma, PUFM was "the awareness of the conceptual structure and basic attitudes of mathematics inherent in elementary mathematics and the ability to provide a foundation for that conceptual structure and instill those basic attitudes in students (p.135). Up to this point, the mathematics that teachers needed to know seemed to align closely with the discipline of mathematics and mathematicians.

Ball and Bass, 2003: Unpacking In 2003, Ball and Bass introduced a different perspective. They observed the compression of knowledge that accompanies increasingly advanced mathematical work (Ball & Bass, 2003, p. 3), and postulated that this compression was opposite in nature to the work teachers engage in as they deconstruct mathematical understandings for the process of teaching. Ball and Basss research focused on the work that teachers do and how that work demanded mathematical reasoning, insight, understanding and skill (Ball & Bass, 2003,
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p. 5). They suggested that it was not sufficient for teacher to be able to solve mathematical problems but in fact required them to inspect alternative methods, examine their mathematical structure and principles, and to judge whether or not they can be generalized (p. 7). The key feature of their research was the unpacking of mathematical knowledge. Teachers work with mathematics as it is being learned, which requires a kind of decompression, or unpacking, of ideas (p. 11) and connecting those ideas across mathematical domains at a given level, and across time as mathematical ideas develop and extend (p. 11).

Davis and Simmt, 2003: Established and Emergent It was at the same time that Davis and Simmt brought a radical new sensibility to the mathematics-for-teaching question when they drew explicit attention to a different metaphoric model for mathematical knowledge and learning based on complexity science. For Davis and Simmt, individual understanding could be seen as enfolded in and unfolding from the broader phenomenon of collective dynamics (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 296). The body of knowledge associated with formal or established mathematics became inexorably intertwined with the process by which that mathematical understanding became established. Davis and Simmt saw an interconnectedness between Mathematical Objects and Curriculum Structures, both of which they viewed primarily as categories of knowledge which were generally seen as established, and Classroom Collectivity and Subjective Understanding, which they viewed as categories of knowing and as evolving, changing or emergent (Davis & Simmt, 2003). Ultimately, Davis and Simmt suggested that mathematical knowing is rooted in our biological structure, framed by bodily experiences, elaborated within social interactions, enabled by cultural tools, and part of an everunfolding conversation of humans and the biosphere (p.315).
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Renert and Davis, 2010: An Integral Reinterpretation Later, Renert and Davis would reinterpret the question of mathematics-forteaching through an integral framework, leaving us with an answer that is generous, challenging, provocative, and complex. [Mathematical knowledge for teaching] is an open way of being with mathematics in different educational contexts. What is called for is a broad awareness of the dynamic evolutionary tensions that are at play during each pedagogical encounter with mathematics. MfT at the integral wave must include a willingness to live in these tensions dialogically, not privileging either one of their dual ends. Living in dynamic evolutionary tensions also requires teachers to be open to the many perspectives through which pedagogical occasions may be engaged and interpreted. (Renert & Davis, 2010, p.22). Renert and Davis (2012) also introduce an extension of Mas PUFM, suggesting a Profound Understanding of Emergent Mathematics (PUEM) that also accounts for enacted realizations and complex processes within mathematical knowledge. They discuss a dynamic process of concept study, where groups of diverse teachers unpack their previous understanding of mathematical concepts, and re-imagine those conceptions in terms of their situated place. Concept study is an attitude towards learning and teaching (that) ..... is simultaneously inquiries in how individuals learn mathematics, how mathematics is taught, and how disciplinary mathematics arises (Davis, 2008, pg. 90). Node two: complexity as a relevant dialogue for mathematics education Learning is a hard thing to define. The definition of learning is inextricably linked to the definition of knowing. Over the last several thousand years, our conceptions of
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learning and knowing have evolved in much the same way as our cultural and social institutions and human values have. From the learning as out there waiting to be found of the ancient Greeks, to learning as an entity of drawing minds into the tenets of centralized authority (i.e. the church), our perception of learning in the 21st century is taking on a more ecological, and a more networked understanding. It is easy to understand why these values have emerged in a time of great ecological change and the rapid technological networking of human intelligence. If you were giving a speech to a group of educators, and you started with the line; learning is a complex phenomenon you would get almost unanimous nods of approval. We may collectively agree with it, but what does it mean? If learning is complex, how do we think about it? Admitting that something is complex is only the first step. Now, we need a way to study and frame that complexity. The emerging field of complexity science, and the researchers that are applying Systems Thinking to the field of learning, offer a different way view that question; if learning is complex, and complex systems learn, then complex systems are learning systems (Davis, 2010).

Emergence of complexity as a dialogue for education Complexity emerged as a coherent theory first out of the biological and ecological sciences and according to Davis and Simmt (2003) it is defined more in terms of the objects of its study than its modes of investigation (p. 137). It grew to encompass many of the social sciences including economics, political science, and psychology and is now being seriously considered for it application in the study of learning systems. Indeed, complexity now includes any phenomenon that might be described as a living system (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 138). The key elements to be considered are that the system must be adaptive, able to change its own structure and as such is better
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described in terms of Darwinian evolution than Newtonian mechanics (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 138) and emergent, composed of and arises in the co-implicated activities of individual agents (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 138).

(Mathematical) Learning as a Complex Adaptive System Moving from the idea that complex systems are systems that learn (Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kapler, 2008, p. 78), Davis and Simmt co-implicate a nested sensibility and suggest that mathematics learning environments are complex systems and could be viewed through a complexity lens. This does not however negate previous theories associated with constructivism, nor does it deny that there may be a Kantian objectively real noumenal realm (Campbell, 2002, p. 428). Rather, these are perspectives on something that we cannot truly define or explain due to the complexity associated with learning but also hold true in their descriptions of particular phenomenon. Additionally, the simultaneity of various learning theories, such as radical and social constructivism, are not problematic in a complexity lens as complexity science explicitly rejects any attempt to collapse such phenomenon into instances, variations, or elaborations of the same thing (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 142). And finally, complexity does not discount that some learning phenomenon might be best described in Newtonian mechanics, and as such, those artifacts of classroom culture associated with such a pedagogical view may have a role to play, however it does make the distinction that these situations would be ones best described as simple systems, determinate and tend[ing] to involve only a few interacting objects or variables (Davis & Simmt, 2003, p. 139). These might include routines such as fire drill procedures and library book exchange. But in the learning of mathematics, many events and systems emerge in the interactions of agents that are themselves dynamic and adaptive (Davis &

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Simmt, 2003, p. 139) and as such this is where a complexity approach may be more appropriate. Davis and Simmt (2003) go on to identify five common features of complex systems. These are internal diversity, which may be described as a systems ability to respond to a variety of external and internal circumstances; redundancy, commonalities between agents in a system that allows for communication and accommodates for system stressors; decentralized control, where decision-making is shared by the system with no specific centralized agency; organized randomness, a dynamic balance between system diversity and redundancy; and neighbor interactions, the ability of agents in the system to come into contact and communicate, exchange with, and affect each other. Davis and Simmt (2003) go further to demonstrate that while these features are useful in describing the mathematics classroom as a complex learning system, they can also be employed in a proscriptive fashion to create complex environments where emergent mathematical learning may occur. Node three: Jennifer, Nurturing In Montessori education, we teach from the big picture and draw on history, geography and culture to ground the students learning in real world examples. It is important to know what has come before us to give insight as to where we are going next. Significantly, we are encouraged to recognize and appreciate the contributions made by the generations that came before us, with an emphasis on finding our own way to contribute to the betterment of the Earth. On my path to becoming a teacher, I had a practicum in a lower elementary Montessori classroom, within the public school system in Prince George, British Columbia. It was so different from a traditional classroom; it took me quite a while to wrap my head around the teachers role. With a lot of support and guidance from my mentor teacher, I learned that I could relinquish some of my power (control) as a teacher and share certain
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responsibilities with the students. This shift in my thinking afforded the students greater independence and investment in their classroom, their learning, their working relationships and their engagement. I could see the enormous potential in this way of teaching and further pursued the avenues of Montessori. In my teacher-training program, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on the use of manipulatives in teaching mathematics. The materials I had seen in my Montessori experience resonated with the instruction I was receiving in my mathematics education course at the University of Victoria. It was here that I also learned that I was one of the only students in my cohort that had actually taken any university level calculus; most of my peers had taken what they called math-for-teachers, which focused on multiple representations of basic operations and provided a less intimidating math that would not adversely affect the grade point averages of future teachers. If so many teachers were afraid of math, how were they planning to teach it? Math has always been an area of strength for me. As a kid, I would take home extra worksheets at the end of the school year and spend the summer teaching my younger brother all of the math that I had learned during the school year. Sharing my love and knowledge of mathematics has been a calling throughout my life as a student and as a teacher. Commensurate with my ideals and passions, Montessori classrooms have well developed mathematics materials that are beautifully crafted, attracting students interest and encouraging care for materials. We often used these specialized materials in demonstrations for prospective parents to lure them into our program - nothing sells a Montessori program quite like a six year old doing multiplication into the thousands with golden bead material or an eight year old doing long division using the racks and tubes material.

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In the summer of 2009, my first son was born and I chose to remain away from teaching for the 2009-2010 school year. Upon my return in September 2010, I found that the climate of our school had changed. There was a new uncertainty about how we should be teaching, especially in the area of mathematics. Although the new math curriculum had been unfolding before I had gone on leave, I was informed by the administration that I had missed out on a lot of change in my year away. This comment troubled me deeply: How much could have possibly changed in a year? Was my teaching practice that out of date? Was I off base even before my leave? I found the 2010-2011 school year to be very tumultuous for me, questioning everything about my teaching practice and resenting the doubt that had been cast on the things I had held most dear: Montessori lessons and problem solving work. To this point I had been proud of my math program. Montessori lessons were personalized and taught to individuals or small groups and the problem solving questions provided a framework for multiple strategies and peer collaboration. Now all of this was to be thrown out the proverbial window. Our administrators strongly discouraged teachers doing several common practices such as, a) giving lessons on how to use materials in specific ways, even if the Montessori material was designed to support concept development in singular areas, b) giving the same questions to a large number of the students, even if you deemed them grade-level appropriate or useful for review, and c) assigning questions that had definitive answers (considered not to be real problems). They were not appropriate, even for practice. Teachers were made to feel inadequate, with little support in finding new ways to teach math. I understand that change can be difficult, but I could not understand why everything had to be changed all at once? Why was I so opposed to the change? Was everything I had been doing wrong? Should I conform to the change without question? Was it new
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school board policy? Was 2009-2010 a groundbreaking year in mathematics education research? Where could I learn more about the research and reasoning that brought about the new math? I had more questions than answers. My frustration finally gave way to resolve; I saw three options: quit and look for a career that pays more, anticipating less or different politics and bureaucracy; stay and accept what was being passed down from above, at the risk of becoming complacent; or seek out and engage in opportunities to become informed about current research and beliefs about mathematics education, arming myself for debates about my own beliefs and practices. Inspired by the writings of Ghandi (1913), I had to become the change I wished to see in the world. Fortunately, the Mathematics-for-Teaching program offered at the University of Calgary afforded me this opportunity: to study the philosophies in mathematics education, to examine the developments in practice and to collaborate with other like-minded individuals passionate about teaching mathematics. Perhaps the latter is the most important, orienting me to the potentialities of collective learning engagements. As I became acquainted with the history and research in M4T, I was intrigued by the growth and change in mindsets surrounding teacher knowledge of mathematics. Immersed in my practice, I have sometimes found it difficult to articulate exactly what it was that I am doing well and what I need to change. Perhaps because I enjoy math, I have had an easy time moving between metaphors and understanding differing perspectives. Using Montessori materials to support concept development at multiple entry points, I have been able to introduce materials suited to each students readiness and context of understanding. This way of teaching has been for me organic in a sense natural; through the study of M4T, I have come to see that this is part of the PCK utilized in teaching.

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Recently, Renert and Davis (2010) re-defined the movement of Mathematics for Teaching: MfT, when understood as an open way of being, asks teachers to always remain curious about mathematics and the ways in which it connects to human experience. The career of a mathematics teacher offers a path of growth and deepening through encounters with new perspectives and the ongoing process of harmonizing evolutionary tensions. (p. 23) This message resonates with my personal journey and quest for knowledge within the framework of MfT. A lot of my personal positioning involves folding back from what I know now to what brought me to this point. My understanding of the past is inextricably connected with the learnings I have experienced in this program. Earnestly, I began my teaching career with abounding optimism for the difference I could make in the world through education. The push from my administration put my system of understanding of what mathematics education should look like into a place of disequilibrium. In order to re-orient myself as a teacher, I fell back on my love of learning, re-engaged in the pursuits of knowing and renewed my confidence in teaching. Once again, I find myself looking for the joy in each situation and celebrating the many successes of the students. I draw on my understanding of nurture to inform my practice towards educating the whole child and maintain a long term goal of arming them with skills, strategies and self-awareness that may help them to be successful in life. Node four: Craig, Collective Sasano-sensei (teachers in Japan are referred to by their family name and the marker sensei, which means teacher) was the grade 3 shunin (team leader) at a very large elementary school in Takasaki, about an hour and a half north of Tokyo by train. The school itself had about 1500 students from Grade 1 to Grade 6. My role was the Assistant
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Language Teacher, which is a fancy title for the token english speaker. I worked at six different schools and I would spend a week or two at each of them, and then move on. Needless to say, it was hard to remember any of my students names. During one of my many meetings with the staff at Sano Elementary School, Sasano-sensei posed the challenge of making the lessons more interactive and fun. He gave me a blank slate to provide the kids with an experience they would not forget. Over the next several weeks, we worked closely together planning a real marketplace in the schools gymnasium where the kids could use math, English and basic conversational skills to complete a shopping list. Sasano-sensei and I bounced ideas back and forth, and we became of one mind. We could read each other, and anticipate what the other was expecting. The experience was an astounding success and opened my eyes to teaching as a profession. At the same time, it showed me that teaching could be a profoundly creative act. It was also a profession that relied on the interactions between others in the system. There was no idea that was not influenced by others. I was hooked. I became a teacher. As usually happens in Japanese schools, Sasano-sensei moved on to a new post (Japanese teachers usually stay at a given school for 3-7 years). I found myself craving that creative blank slate where my imagination could run wild. It was also around this time that I became interested in ecology, ecological philosophy, and zen buddhism. Reading David Suzuki, Rachel Carson, Fritjof Capra, Thich Nhat Hanh, and EF Schumacher, I became increasingly curious about the connections that abound in and to the world around me. I got married. Had a child. Left Japan. Deciding to get my Bachelor of Education at the University of Toronto was a big change that brought with it a new direction in my life. For the first time I felt as if I was
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doing what I wanted to do it. I was challenged and I was able to make connections to the topics I was curious about, to the process of learning. For the first time in my life, I felt that I possessed creative characteristics. I felt I had found my element. It was at OISE that I was first introduced to complexity science as a lens for viewing learning. Although, at the time, I dismissed it as too abstract and disconnected from the real world of a classroom. I was barely keeping my head above water with the coursework, having an infant, and being back in a country that now seemed so foreign to me. In true recursive nature, it would return to me. After OISE, I found myself back in Japan, working at a small international school in a rural village, teaching the children of physicists at an EU nuclear fusion research site. Again, my thoughts came back to Capra and his systems thinking. I began to integrate the core principles of ecological thinking into my learning program (crudely and without direction I must add). I wanted to set about a paradigm shift in the perceived purpose of education. Using the systems thinking guiding principles set forth by the Center for Ecoliteracy (an institute founded by Capra) and their core ecological concepts; Guiding Principles (shifts in perspective) Parts to whole Objects to relationships Objective knowledge to conceptual Quantity to quality Structure to process Contents to pattern Core Ecological Concepts Networks Nested Systems Cycles Flows Development Dynamic Balance

adapted from Center for Eco-Literacy, 2011

Using this as my guiding philosophy, I set about to create an experiential, inquiry based program that was grounded in a sense of place, both in regards to an internal self, and through our local environment. That ended on March 11th 2011, as a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck the East coast of Japan (where I was living) and a chain of events started that eventually led to me finding a new school.
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Before the 3.11 earthquake, however, I was also introduced to the work of Kath Murdoch, an inquiry learning consultant based out of Australia. She led us through some very powerful activities that changed the way I viewed learning and teaching. After her workshop, I found myself searching for a M.Ed degree, and serendipitously ended up at the University of Calgary, where I was introduced to the work of Brent Davis, and Complexity in Education. It was at this point that many emergent lines came together. My curiosity about ecology and systems thinking, my previous experience and dismissal of complexity, and my craving for authentic, creative teaching. I find it intriguing that all these nodes in the network of my journey as a learner and a teacher, that I find myself back where I started, and researching what got me into teaching in the first place. All those years ago working with Sasano-sensei, I was introduced to the notion that teaching and learning can be acts of creativity which are accessed through collective interactions. At the time I do not think I understood why, but the prospect of doing it excited me. Now, I hope to peel back another layer and start to explore the how and why. Node five: Mike, Artistry I began my teaching practice over eight years ago. Having studied, under Dr. David Jardine, a particular pedagogical interpretation of inquiry-based learning, I was comfortable with the ideas of unpacking the essential understandings related to big concepts or questions and subsequent integration of curriculum into tasks designed to explore those understandings. I took on my first position as an elementary generalist, teaching grade six at a charter school. As part of that assignment, I was tasked with the responsibility of interpreting the mathematics curriculum and planning the mathematical tasks, inquiries and assessments for myself and the other three members of my team. Given that my academic background to this point focused on drama and English language arts, I found myself quickly trying to make sense of both the content and pedagogical
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knowledge required, using metaphors of mathematics as both a language and an art form to support and structure my mathematical activities and sensibilities - metaphors that I continue to use this day when working with peers and colleagues. A chance conversation with Dr. Sharon Friesen that year, introduced me to a world of mathematical disciplines beyond the Euclidian geometry and algebraic numeracy that dominated the Alberta curriculum. Working with the Centre for Gifted Education over the next four years, I began to explore disciplines such as game theory, cryptography, combinatorics, fractal geometry, logic, network theory, chaos theory, and complexity mathematics. Each of these I would unpack and explore alongside gifted elementary students, further developing my own understanding of mathematics. At the same time, I was also introduced to the work of Dr. Rocky Rohwedder and the six core principles of ecoliteracy: networks, nested systems, cycles, flows, development and dynamic balance (Centre for Ecoliteracy, 2011). These principles would eventually form a core component in my emerging interests in complexity science and later complexity as a metaphor for mathematics education. It was during my first year as a grade six teacher however that I began to recognize in my students a fear and dislike of mathematics, despite my best efforts to engage them in relevant, meaningful, and creative tasks. I wondered if this general dislike towards mathematics was due in part to potentially negative experiences early in their academic lives. At the end of the year, I made the decision to move to the Calgary Board of Education where I could work with students in early elementary, an option not available to me in the charter school. For the next three years, I worked with grade one and two
21 adapted from Center for Eco-Literacy, 2011

students, trying to develop not only their mathematical capacity but also the passion for and confidence in mathematics that I found lacking in my previous students. Continuing my work with inquiry-based practice, I consistently strove to integrate mathematics with both science and humanity studies. It was during this time that I was introduced to the work of Dr. Brent Davis in complexity theory as it relates to mathematical education. At this point, my efforts as a mathematics autodidact redoubled as I began to unpack the metaphor of complexity and how it related to my work as an educator. Three years later I left my position as a teacher to take on a one-year assignment with one of the Calgary Board of Education Alberta Initiative for School Improvement teams. In that role I worked with five other educators as part of a mathematics response team, going into area schools that were requesting support in mathematical pedagogy and practice, particularly in light of a new Alberta curriculum of studies in mathematics. Initially, my work with the team required a deep investigation into the scope and sequence of the new curriculum in addition to debate and discussion around some of the key understandings with which it was associated. Being the only member of the team with division one experience, I found myself in great demand. I began working with teachers in over 15 schools, collaborating on mathematical projects, unpacking curriculum, and developing programs and resources for early elementary education. Through this process, I had the opportunity to work with both new and master educators, often engaging in informal deconstructions of mathematical concepts. In my role I often worked as a conduit between educators in different classrooms, and often different schools, sharing pedagogy and practice while allowing those to influence the development of my own. At the end of that year, I joined the leadership team at an elementary school in northeast Calgary whose mission and vision included inquiry-based learning, Reggio Emilia principles inspired practice, and arts-centered instruction. Brought on board to
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further develop their mandate around inquiry learning, I was additionally tasked with professional development and support with mathematics instruction, often integrating it with a fine and performing arts curriculum. This, in addition to the high percentage of English Language Learners in the school community, added further levels of complexity to mathematics instruction, providing me with many opportunities to deepen my understanding of content knowledge in relationship to other disciplines. All the while, on a personal level, I had been exploring a parallel journey in spirituality, seeking enlightenment and personal fulfillment through a study of various world religions. Moving from traditional Christianity to pagan traditions in Shamanism and Wicca to the eastern philosophy of Buddhism, I finally discovered Taoism, the principles of which no doubt have contributed to my emerging interests in integral theory and complexity, in addition to raising questions around the ethnography of mathematics in both western and eastern cultures. While it appears self-evident now, each of these experiences represent co-operant forces in my emerging interests in mathematics for teaching research and my interest in the artistry of mathematics, mathematics curriculum, and mathematics teaching. However, despite the illusion of a linear progression from that point in the past to where I stand, I recognize that it is more of an evolution out of complexity rather than a series of cause and effect relationships and it is this meta-awareness of both the linear nature and the emergent phenomenon that give rise to my current research interests.

The Emergences It is here that we now find ourselves, in the space of the interplay between these five nodes specifically and in the broader domain of mathematics education. It is here that we begin to recognize significant emergences in the form of domains for new study.

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Situating ourselves in educational literature while grounded in classroom teaching, we recognize the tensions between educational theory and practice. In the Masters of Teaching program at the University of Calgary, we have developed and reinterpreted our own beliefs about mathematics education by engaging in relevant coursework, thoughtprovoking readings, and rich discussions - all facilitated by professors at the forefront of mathematics education research. The M4T question of what mathematics do teachers need to know has evolved to what mathematics do teachers already know, how do individuals learn mathematics, how is mathematics taught, and how does mathematics come to be? (Davis, 2010). If we are to investigate the claim by Davis and Renert stated earlier that viewing the class as a system that learns requires living in dynamic evolutionary tensions also requires teachers to be open to the many perspectives through which pedagogical occasions may be engaged and interpreted, (Renert & Davis, 2010, p.22), we find ourselves confronted with a newfound awareness and open way of being with mathematics, how do teachers begin to challenge the strongholds of traditional teaching practices and the footholds of a factory model education system? Viewing the classroom as a complex adaptive system, we posit that elements of nurturing, collectivity and artistry are at play simultaneously in the spaces of effective teaching. Nurture in the mathematics classroom creates a safe space for risk-taking, idea sharing, mistake making and flexible learning. Collectivity embraces internal diversity and redundancy within the group of learners towards shared mathematical understandings greater than the sum of the individual parts: emergence out of multiplicity. Artistry elicits both an interpretive approach to mathematics curriculum and pedagogy as well as a dynamic and responsive role of educators as necessary agents within the complex system of education. In the body of this paper, we will endeavor to embody and re-present each of these nodes respectively.
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We will consider the affordances of Nurturing Collective Artistry, looking closely at each node and responding to the relationships between the nodes as we have come to know them within the robust systems of knowing and learning. All three nodes (and not limited to these three nodes), separately and collectively, inform teaching practice in our classrooms. We anticipate that through individual node analysis and node connectivity study, we might gain emergent insight into the lively interplay that lends to effective teaching practices in the mathematics classroom. It is our belief that nurturing collective artistry is a potential avenue for further exploration in terms of occasioning and engaging with the pedagogy and teachers disciplinary knowledge of mathematics and of the mathematics classroom. These varied and diverse perspectives may open new possibilities, and afford us to grapple with the dynamic tensions that are play when considering the math class as a learning system. We are curious in what ways is nurturing collective artistry may occasion us to think of the webs of associations and how they are co-implicated in grander systems of mathematics as a subject, knowing and learning mathematics, teaching mathematics, and as well as even larger systems of language, culture, and human ecology. Essentially, we believe that how a teacher engages with students is as important as what a teacher teaches, and perhaps nurturing collective artistry shares rhizomatic roots with concept study in mathematics education today. To this, we invite further and future dialogue.

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CHAPTER 2 The Need for Nurture within Education


Jennifer Markides

Looking Ahead and Hurtling Forward: how has our changing world re-emphasized the need for nurture in education? These days, it would seem as though what students need to know is changing rapidly. The technological advancements of the last 35 years have brought us in-home and portable computers, pocket-sized cellular telephones, personal electronic devices, global positioning systems, television special effects, the Internet, Google and social media. Information is at our fingertips. Students can find answers to many of their queries within seconds of wondering or posing a question. They are exposed to more information and involved in greater instant communication than ever before. Teachers are finding ways to incorporate technology in the classroom, integrating lessons with Smartboards, iPads, robotics and much more. With daily blogging, classrooms are participating in social media as a means to meet the needs of their parent communities. What and how we teach may be changing, but the need for nurture in the classroom remains. Students familiarity with technology creates a false sense of developmental maturity. They are doing these things sooner than their parents generation, but that is

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more a reflection of timing and availability rather than advanced technological literacy for their age. Students of nine years old only have nine years of experiences to draw on. Their experiences may differ greatly from those of their parents but that does not negate their need for guidance and teaching. The reality of the world that they are presented with on television, through video games and on-line is often distorted. It may not be unrealistic for them to expect to be on a reality television show, to become famous and have everything that a celebritys life entails. In contrast to the tragic and often rationalized violence associated with wars, students now see killing depicted in ways that glorify and dehumanize the act. They may begin to believe that violence is commonplace and an acceptable part of everyday life. An alarming number of people in Western society are also living in a culture of consumer debt, contributing to a must have generation. Media literacy has become a necessary focus within education and students reliance/dependence on technology borders between entitlement and necessity. The work of parents and teachers must now also include teaching children and students how to use technology responsibly, how to filter and evaluate the information that is presented in various media, and how to think independently and self-advocate in a world that is ever changing. Savvy advertisers, opportunistic predators, and propagandapushing extremist groups often target societys most vulnerable and impressionable groups, including our youth. Now, we have to explain to our students that posting geotagged pictures provides people with the exact location and that this can be exceedingly dangerous when accompanied with names and other details from their personal lives. We cannot protect students from everything, but we can try to make them wiser to potential hazards in their world. In particular, schools aim to create cultures of safety. Through a nurturing approach, many teachers aspire to provide opportunities for communities of learners to think creatively and make conscientious decisions.
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Nurture has been an integral part of education throughout history. It is a biological phenomenon shared by many species. As a node in a network of associations, nurture has many entailments, connections and implications for education. The definition of nurture needs to be explored at the hub of the node, distinguishing it from its close association with care. I believe that the varying degrees of nurture teachers exhibit within the (mathematics) classroom may offer significant benefits and at times drawbacks too. By sharing anecdotal narratives from my own teaching practice and offering insights and connections from research literature on similar topics, I hope to open dialogue about the complexities of nurture as it manifests in teaching practice and perhaps informing emergent implications for education.

Beginning at the Node: what does nurture entail? Merriam Websters Online Dictionary (2013) defines nurture as training, upbringing, something that nourishes 1 (food), the sum of the environmental factors influencing the behavior and traits expressed by an organism, to supply with nourishment, educate, to further the development of, foster. Synonyms include: advance, cultivate, encourage, forward, further, incubate, nourish, nurse, foster, and promote. The Latin origin brings an association with nursing or suckling, to nourish. With these connotations in mind, a connection to the feminine is evident. Looking at the web of associations, nurture evokes images of maternal instincts and relationships. In this way, male teachers may be seen to be taking on feminine roles 2 in
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Under trusted advisement, I would like to acknowledge that nourishment has a twofold meaning. It can be interpreted as feeding the body and it also suggests feeding ones sense of belonging. The first falls within the Montessori teachings of Needs of Man, while the second is a component of the needs of youth described by Brendtro, Brokenleg and Van Bockern (1990). In their book, they describe the Circle of Courage as it originates from the Blackfoot peoples spiritual beliefs (often symbolized by the medicine wheel).
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Further under advisement, I would like to elaborate that by feminine roles I am referring to the associations of nurture that conjure images or impressions of mother and child (nursing, suckling, and nourishing) - the maternal and, in turn, paternal aspects of nurturing a child while acting in loco parentis.
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the classroom. Teachers, both male and female, live in the tension between nature and nurture as first described by Galton (Nature versus Nurture, 2013) - they must consider both what the students bring with them to the classroom and how the students experience occasions for learning, both deliberate and unplanned. The definition and prevalence of nurture does not differ from one setting to another, but how it manifests in practice and experience will be unique to each teacher and each teaching context. Nurture in various contexts may be expounded by teachers in many ways, such as: acknowledging a students efforts towards a goal, asking and genuinely caring about the students life outside of school, sharing ones passion for the subject matter, holding a student accountable for their actions, or searching purposefully for new strategies to support student learning 3. If anything, the purposeful nurture that is specific to the realm of education is perhaps self-similar to the nurture of parenting. Nurture, as a skillset in teaching, may be tacit in the same ways that Shulman (1986) describes teachers pedagogical content knowledge: existing and influencing (practice), but essentially unexploited.

Some Connections to the Nurture Node: what are the pre-existing associations? As previously mentioned, there has been a longstanding debate as to whether a persons abilities are predetermined at birth: nature, or whether they are learned as a result of experience and environmental factors: nurture. The false dichotomy setup by the nature and nurture debate does not give rise to a distinction between the two (dare I say) dominant influences in ones cognitive development. Instead, the interplay between nature and nurture affords a necessarily inseparable coexistence of inextricably connected parts. Since nature represents biological and innate factors that are out of the teachers control,

This is not an exhaustive list of examples, but perhaps a starting place for thought and discussion.
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the teacher should aspire to and maintain a cognizant awareness of each childs nature. Purposefully informed by nature, the teachers efforts should then be focused on nurture. Canadian, van Manen (1982) purported that reflection on interactions with children through a phenomenological approach could inform pedagogical practices more deeply than other research approaches, suggesting also that tact and sensitivity be at the forefront of consideration. He went on to describe the need for a conscious awareness of both what is said and what left unsaid. These beliefs resonate with specific aspects of my teaching practice. First, I endeavour to reflect on my practice often, trying to take the students perspectives. At times, the phenomenological approach allows me to see when an instruction may have been confusing or when a conflict resolution strategy may have appeared unfair. Second, I always try to explain my reasoning when addressing students work habits, social behaviours and other concerns that may cause a student to be defensive or unsure about something. I am very conscious of what is said by not speaking up about certain choices the students make, I am asking you to move tables because I care that you get your work done; if I didnt care about you being successful, I would just ignore the fact that you are visiting and not working. It would be easier and less hassle. In this instance, not saying anything would signal to that the student that I am okay with their behaviour and lack of work ethic. They would be sadly mistaken. It takes time and purposeful effort to be forthcoming about reasons for choices in the day-to-day goings on in the classroom, but it is worth it to lessen my image as an authoritarian teacher in the students eyes. They often express resolve and sometimes gratitude when an explanation has been offered. These are ways I try to demonstrate care and respect for my students. Influenced by Kohlbergs justice-based stages of moral development and Gilligans feminist perspective of empathy and compassion, Noddings (1984) put forth her theory of the ethics of care. She suggested that there are three requirements for caring. The
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[r]elationship between the carer (one-caring) and the cared for (cared-for) must demonstrate[:] (a) engrossment and (b) motivational displacement, causing (c) a response from the cared-for (1984, pp. 1112). Thus, the teacher has not cared for the student, unless the student responds in some way to the care. The response may be as audible as a verbal acknowledgement, as visible as a smile or nod, or as subtle as a change in subconscious awareness or affect. This also speaks to the intentionality of nurture needed to elicit the sense or impression of being cared for. Aoki (1990) articulated the difference between the planned curriculum and the lived curriculum, suggesting that more attention should be given to the lived experience of the classroom. While the teacher may plan a lesson to teach a given concept, students may learn or place importance on something completely different from intended purpose of the lesson. This gives rise to the importance of a healthy classroom culture. The attitudes, predispositions and relationships influence the course of the planned and lived curriculums. Sidorkin (1999) proposed the benefits of carnival as a type of unique contributory experience that would bond a group of people together through shared purpose. He reported how greatly invested the participants became in a short time frame and how memorable the experience was for those involved. Although Sidorkin describes the phenomenon as it occurred with a disenfranchised group of youths, the underlying concept may apply in the typical classroom setting. Nurture requires a connection or relationship of trust that may be initiated and/or strengthened through an embodiment of carnival. Further, Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler (2008) introduced collectivity as a more simultaneous view of interactions within a learning system. They also suggested that the internal diversity and redundancy within a collective are the tensions that generate the systems vibrant sufficiency. Similar to Sidorkins (1999) carnival, occasioning for

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collectivity may sometimes necessitate a common goal or shared purpose in educational pursuits. The many connections at this node suggest the importance of nurturing. These include collectivity, memorable experiences, perspective taking, acknowledged care, and meaningful relationships. Without the nurture node, the associated connections would be weakened and less stable.

Fostering a Community of Risk-takers: A re-view of why nurture is important in the classroom? It is hard not to be affected by the many significant ways our lives are influenced and shaped by our day-to-day experiences. Recently, I took on an unfamiliar teaching assignment: grades 4 and 5. Considering that I was in the final year of my masters program and a new mother of two, I hesitated to take the position, preferring the safety of the quasi-familiar. Fortunately, I was pushed to take a risk, trying something new and expanding my experiential knowledge. The group of students ranged in age from eight to ten year olds. It surprised me to learn that many were struggling with low self-confidence and poor self-image; they were also very concerned with how others saw them: their reputations. I was forewarned to expect individual behaviour issues and anticipate problematic group dynamics. Looking to my Montessori training to inform my practice, I revisited her insights as to the developmental stages of the child. Specifically, Maria Montessori (1976/1948) describes the second plane of development, experienced by six to twelve year olds, as a time of metamorphosis. During this period she noted that the children tend to work and socialize in groups. This stage is marked with the childs increased aptitude for tasks involving imagination, independent thinking, and moral reasoning. The child may also become self-conscious at this stage of development.
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Considering these elements within the context of my classroom, I set out to develop positive relationships with and among my students that would reflect their positive self worth. Additionally, I aimed to nurture the students strengths and passions while creating a climate of safety for everyone, realizing that many factors were outside my control (but I at least had to try). Beginning with kind, consistent messages and an expectation of mutual respect, we embarked on a year of significant growth for individuals and community building between all members of the class. It was not all perfect or easy, but the expectation for care and respect set a tone for persistence, perseverance and intrinsic motivation. Our yearlong inquiry focused on identity. We explored the aspects of how we shape our identity and how our identity shapes us. The majority of the students demonstrated a great aptitude and interest in art. The passion for the arts allowed us to consistently revisit the notion of identity, while reflecting on aspects of self: image, confidence, and advocacy. Nurture was the underpinning of every assignment, conversation and experience that we shared in our classroom collective. My goal as a teacher is to develop a meaningful relationship with each student such that they know that I am in their corner (please pardon the boxing metaphor, colloquial but apt). Just as my grandparents have successfully made every child, grandchild and great grandchild feel as though they are the favourite (without ever saying it), I have worked to make a unique and significant connection to every student. Whenever possible, I take time to hear both students sides in an argument. In many recent instances, I have suggested, we are all working on stuff. Ive given the students concrete examples of what I know they were working on, and then I offer, perhaps Fred (pseudonym for a peers name) is working on learning how to be part of the game too (or other relevant issue that bothered their classmate). This seemed to help
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bridge the feeling that others are so different than them and that no one else has problems or issues to deal with. With this age group, I found these conversations particularly helpful towards building empathy and understanding towards each other. If nothing else, they had a chance to cool down and cut each other some slack. In a few cases, students who started the year at odds learned that they were not so different from each other, worked together on a few assignments (by choice) and even became friends as the year progressed. The relationships they nurtured between one another were equally as important. Through small group challenges modeled after The Amazing Race, the students worked in groups that they normally would not have chosen for themselves. Along with the Montessori Great Lessons, experiences such as this evoke the spirit of carnival, creating shared experiences and vibrant memories that endured throughout the year. Through the collective decision making process, students were supported in discussing, evaluating, and determining personal choices with respect to the group. They expressed appreciation for having a say in shaping their educational experiences. Through nurture, collectivity and care, our lived curriculum was inextricably connected to the identities of the individual agents within our class. The community thrived, occasioning for growth beyond the scope of any individualized or personalized program plan4. The students responded to their experiences of nurture, by nurturing others and importantly, themselves.

I really value individualized/personalized program plans (IPP/PPP) for what they represent. The information in the assessment documents that lead to an IPP is invaluable in program planning for some kids. I once taught a student that was beginning to exhibit behaviour problems as a way to deal with his frustrations in school. He was in grade 4 already and not in the cue for an educational assessment. Sensing his deep-rooted anxieties, I made a case to my administrator to have him assessed before the end of the year. Surprisingly and not unexpectedly, the educational psychological assessment revealed that the student was cognitively functioning at a very high level, though his processing/output was of a level that constituted a learning disability. He left our school knowing his strengths and areas of weakness. His mom returned to our school the following year and reported on his progress. He now loved going to school and was able to express his needs to his new teachers, requesting alternative forms of presenting and sharing his knowledge with others.
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Nurture anew: what are the implications for the (mathematics) educators of today? With the new mathematics curriculum, it has become very important that the students feel comfortable enough with their peers and confident enough with themselves to take risks, apply strategies, hypothesize and revise, accordingly. This heuristic, problem-based approach to mathematics has pushed many students (and teachers) out of their comfort zones. They are being asked to think differently. Azzouni (2006) asserts that within our society, we are quick to see and point out errors in our mathematical thinking. This tends toward the masculine mathematics, which Bibby (2010) hazards is a mathematics characterized by logic (ism), authoritarianism and stoicism. Similarly, de Freitas (2008) recognizes that the feminine mathematics may be seen as a threat to the masculine way of knowing math, but argues that narratives of the human experience may offer entry points for divergent and possibly creative thinking about mathematics. Despite the reputation of math being hard, rigid and orderly, math can be seen conversely/adversely as soft, malleable and messy. By embracing qualities of the feminine, nurture allows for learning from ones mistakes, cultivating ideas with others, and fostering a sense of peaceful resoluteness in the midst of the unknown. Perhaps, teachers might consider nurture as a means to support students in becoming more resilient, collaborative and confident mathematicians.

So Much Change, So Little Progress An appeal to nurture shared goals within the educational community Maria Montessoris vision for the future from 1948: My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding on that certification from the secondary school to the university, but of individuals passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own
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activity, through their own effort of will, which constitutes the inner evolution of the individual (p. 1). Nel Noddings plea to the global community in 2005: We will not find the solution to problems of violence, alienation, ignorance, and unhappiness in increasing our security, imposing more tests, punishing schools for their failure to produce 100 percent proficiency, or demanding that teachers be knowledgeable in the subjects they teach. Instead, we must allow teachers and students to interact as whole persons, and we must develop policies that treat the school as a whole community (p. 8). Within the unique setting of the classroom, teachers have opportunities to nurture students differently and purposefully in relation to others. Parents nurturing often involves putting their childs needs first (and rightly so). Teachers consider the needs of the collective simultaneously with the needs of the individuals. In our role as educators, we nurture children to contribute within a group and to accept the contributions of others; we nurture children to be friends, to recognize the attributes of a good friend, to maintain positive friendships, and to reciprocate the qualities of healthy friendships. Where else in life can this type of learning be so deliberately supported? Many teachers, caring teachers, look beyond a students strengths, rather than trying to pigeonhole them for a future vocation. These teachers see the whole child, acknowledging that the strengths will only take them so far; and that by nurturing all aspects of their development, they may help to prepare them to work with and learn from others within society. Their goal is to have a positive impact on a students life, such that they may go farther than they ever hoped or imagined. Without nurture, what job is left? Teachers can be replaced in all other capacities: organizational, managerial, informational, evaluatory, and even experiential. It is only the aspect of nurture, deliberate
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and caring, that cannot be mimicked, imitated or re-generated with any genuine authenticity. Teachers are not perfect; in some ways, it is our fallibility that the students relate to and that allows them to truly connect to us. Our human qualities bring us all together and set us all apart. It is our willingness and persistence to nurture, each in our own unique ways, that afford us as our greatest opportunities to impact students lives in truly meaningful ways.

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RESPONSE Nurturing Collectives


Craig Dwyer

What exactly does it mean to nurture the collective? This was the thought running through my mind as I read the previous chapter by Markides. I believe there are no quick answers to this questions. It is entangled within many more questions. Teachers, as Markides points out, are human beings, and we are fallible. This fallibility allows us to connect with each other, and this connection, allows us to thrive, if the soil is fertile and the conditions are ripe. it is so much more than just the conditions, and I think the concept of Nurture offers a much more human way of looking at learning systems. Empowerment Students should feel a sense of ownership over not only their learning environment, but also the content they learn. By listening to their collective concerns, we can better react to their understanding and personalize the learning. That personalization also allows for the collective to flourish. As Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler (2008) point out that collectivity starts by being as individual as possible. Perhaps, it is then through the nurturing of a caring environment, that we arrive at a place where individuals feel free to share with the collective. Teachers can nurture an environment of sharing by bringing awareness to healthy social dynamics, and explicitly making these dynamics an object of
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study. Perhaps by empowering learners to take control of their learning, we can open windows to viewing the classroom as a collective system? Peer to Peer Culture This collective connection requires an increased emphasis on the concept of work in progress (note, I hate the term work as it applies to school, so I will switch to learning as a noun). For students to be able to share, they need to be able to trust each other. Here the teacher has a powerful role by enabling students to learn together and help each other with their learning with one another. While they are sharing, it is important to not only listen to the feedback from the collective, but to allow that feedback to change your perception. I wonder if by nurturing an environment of sharing, we can occasion a shift from individual students learning in isolation, to a collective learning from each other? Open Communication If our students are communicating with other, and sharing their learning openly and honestly, then teachers need to provide an atmosphere with decentralized lines of communication. They need access to each other just as much as they need access to the teacher. By controlling the communication, teachers can unknowingly create a bureaucracy that stifles creativity. The feedback will not be able to change the learners perspective if it is not free to move throughout the collective. Maybe nurturing requires a close relationship between all individuals in the collective but it also requires knowing when to get out of the way? Growth Mindset Dweck (2006) provides a compelling look at the ways in which our thoughts about learning affect the practice of learning itself. She argues that teachers and coaches are in a key position to affect these mindsets, and subsequent shifts in mindset. Perhaps then,
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nurturing is about helping kids to see challenges as a part of learning, and helping children to be intrigued by mistakes, rather than afraid of them? The role of the teacher This is by no means an exhaustive list, or an end to my questions. Yet, it forces me to reconsider the role of nurture, and love, in my classroom. By nurturing the individuals within the collective, we can open new spaces. Markides paper suggests to me that these spaces point to the culture of the classroom, and culture is a product of human interplay. It emerges from the collective interactions of individuals. Perhaps then, nurturing a community is about providing a safe space where a unique culture can emerge?

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RESPONSE Art as nourishment: A response to the need for nurture within education
Michael Craig

Art for me is a form of nourishment - Andy Goldsworthy (Riedelsheimer, 2001). In The Need for Nurture within Education, Markides (2013) offers us a way of viewing the complex (mathematics) classroom that embraces learning from ones mistakes, cultivating ideas with others, and fostering a sense of peaceful resoluteness in the midst of the unknown (p. 35.). This is primarily accomplished, as suggested by Markides, through a culture of nurture. As I explored this culture from a perspective of artistry, the notion of nurture as nourishment (p.28) stood out for its parallel to the arts as nourishment and my own history as a theatre performer. As I explored these parallels further, there were particular aspects of nurture that seemed to mirror strongly the role of arts, specifically the performing arts, in complex systems based classrooms. These aspects included: a) nourishment for the artist, b) nourishment of the performing collective, and c) the relationship of artist and audience.

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Nourishing the Artist As a actor, theatre always seemed to fill a void for me. I was always seeking ways to express myself and often it was through speech or role play. As a child, my games focussed on creating roles and characters to play. Not one for sports, I was always seeking a way to stand out, to find that thing that made me special. Throughout schooling, I struggled with my own identity, never really fitting in until I discovered drama in high school. There I found a place to express myself, to explore creativity with characters and motivation, and to draw out the gifts that I had within. Ironically, it was through made-up characters and roles that I found my own identity and learned to share it with the world. Theater both nourished and nurtured my individual development. As she explored her own practice, Markides described a yearlong inquiry into identity that had student exploring notions of image and confidence with a goal towards advocacy. This inquiry was marked by a majority of students demonstrat[ing] a great aptitude and interest in art (p. 33). This would seem appropriate in that it drew on the aptitude for tasks that involve imagination, a characteristic of the Montessori stage for six to twelve year olds (p.32). As with my own journey, it would seem that the arts serve as a vehicle for the individual student to meet a need for imagination and creativity, nourishing and nurturing their aptitudes.

Nourishing the Collective There is a sense of collective when one is part of a theatrical endeavor. As an actor, I always found a deep appeal in the near immediate bonding that would occur when actors would take up a script and open themselves up to the experience. It was as if the individual that was myself was yearning to be part of something bigger. More than just making a connection to the other performers, we were, together, creating something bigger
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than ourselves, greater than the sum of our individual performances. As actor or director, I could feel this moment where the play ceased to be individuals coming together and took on a life of its own. At a deep level I knew that I was part of something that nourished that emergence and I was a key part of its nurture and development. Markides captures this aspect to the performing arts in Siodrkins (1999) concept of carnival, which Markides describes as an unique contributory experience that would bond a group of people together through shared purpose (Markides, 2013, p. 31). What would seem to be called for in this experience is a strong shared empathy between the participants in order to nurture the collective emergence. A byproduct of this nurturing empathy is in the network of connections between the participants. In Markides classroom experience, she speaks to a profound empathy that enabled greater understanding between her students that allowed them to see each other as individuals with different needs to be nurtured, by either the teacher or the other students in the classroom.

Artist and Audience Ask any performer and they will tell you that during the moment of performance, there is a special bond between the performers and the audience. While the performers are delivering joy or laughter or tears or introspection or any number of complex emotional reactions to their audience, at the same time performers are feeding off the energy of their audience. This is not always a growth experience. There were times on stage where I could feel the audience was no longer with us and the performance suffered greatly. However in those time when the energy fed the actors, the show would take to new heights. And in those times, the audience was treated to a heightened experience of the show. It was a reciprocal thing. The show nurtured the needs of the audience and the audience nourished the show.

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Markides parallels this experience through her discussion of Noddings (1984) ethics of care. The relationship between the carer (one-caring) and the cared for (caredfor) must demonstrate[:] (a) engrossment and (b) motivational displacement, causing (c) a response from the cared-for (1984, pp. 1112). Markides (2013) would seem therefore to be describing nurture as a reciprocal relationship between the teacher and the student by suggesting that the teacher has not cared for the student unless the student responds in some way to the care (p. 31). This would in turn suggest that in a nurturing environment, much as in the performing arts environment, both the needs of the carer and the cared require nourishment.

Food for Further Thought The parallels between Markides experiences in her classroom and my own as performer highlight for me the parallels between art and nurture. As with art, nurture

requires empathy, openness to others, and reciprocity if it is to fully nourish both the carer and cared for. And as with art, the benefits of a nurturing environment in the complex (mathematics) classroom, are creativity, care, flexibility and solutions to problems of violence, alienation, ignorance, and unhappiness (Noddings, 2005, p.8). So in the words of the William Shakespeare from Twelfth Night, If music be the food of love, play on.

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CHAPTER 3 wandering through collective spaces


Craig Dwyer

Autumn was everywhere you looked in Tokyo. The subways were crowded with workers in suit jackets. Gone were the short sleeved shirts and sweaty brows. A pleasant smell of kinmokuse flowers hung in the air. Evenings were crisp, but not cold, and the cicadas had long since gone silent. Trees were shedding their leaves and the wind would pick up the offerings and twist and turn them in the air, leaving not-so neat little piles on the side of road. Though Tokyo is a city that never sleeps, there were occasional moments of silent clarity, as if the city were trying to rid itself of the noise and motion and just enjoy the moon on a cloudless night. It was the autumn of 2010, and I found myself sitting in a cleared out music classroom at Tokyo International School with about one hundred other teachers. There were drum kits stacked in the corner and we were sitting next to a pile of trumpets. I had made the 600 km trip south from Aomori, where I lived and worked, to join a workshop with an Australian education consultant. The topic was Teaching and Learning Through Inquiry. We spent two days engaged in deep questions about the purpose of school, what a thinking curriculum should look like, and how to evoke a sense of wonder in our students, not wonder in the sense of amazing, but rather a profound sense of curiosity.
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We came back from a wonderful lunch on the second day to find a shroud of red and white tartan cloth sitting on our table. Our facilitator asked us not to touch the cloth, but to wonder what was underneath. Some members of our table got very close and smelled the cloth, but it emitted no odor. Others listened carefully, but it made no sound. It appeared, in our limited perspective state, to be simply a bump under a piece of fabric. Next, we were permitted to touch the cloth with the palms of our hands. We could discern shape. We could feel texture. We could tell how hard the item was. These few sensorial indicators gave birth to something at our table. Ideas began to fly. Theories. Conjectures. Somebody grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil (which were placed there beforehand but never mentioned) and started scribbling down our thinking. The more people suggested, the more the image became real. We all felt different things, and the variety of experience pushed us down unexplored paths. Suddenly, an announcement was made that we could now use our fingers. We took turns, slowly turning it over in our hands, feeling, poking and prodding every nook and cranny, careful not to disturb the shroud and spoil the drama. As we felt, we thought out loud, and slowly a theory began to form. Several theories began to form, each one connected to the other. These theories were not born out of our observations of the thing we were inquiring into, but rather they emerged from our questions. As one person asked a question, it sparked another question, which gave birth to a new thought from which new questions would come forth. Our mindful attention to our questions, and our openness to travel down new paths gave us all a sense of purpose. This thing, this mysterious object, was bringing our minds together which enabled us to wonder out loud. As we were finally permitted to remove the shroud, we saw the item and we still had no idea what it was. Our inquiries continued. This thing, in plain sight, was still mysterious. The activity eventually ended, and the facilitator told us she had a faint idea
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what it was. She had picked it up from a yard sale many years ago and had fallen in love with the unknown qualities it possessed. This didnt stop us from inquiring. We came up with several theories, and spurred on by a collective sense of amazement, we continued to guess and add new strands to our network of thoughts. I wish I could explain to you now what it looked like, or what it felt like, or what our theories about it were. The truth is, I dont remember. I cant recall a single thing about the object. Not one. Here is what I do remember; our group was operating at a level that was above what any one of us could attain. As a collective of individuals, we were stronger, more open-minded, more creative, asked better questions, and were more intelligent that any individual could have been on their own. We accepted the drama of the situation, we were enticed by the rules, and we embraced the ambiguity of the unknown. In the end, not knowing what the object was by no means felt to us as a sense of defeat. Rather, we felt a profound sense of accomplishment. The goal was not the successful naming of the object, but rather the journey we took together. It was about the learning. This activity has had a profound experience on my views of teaching, learning, and knowing. Learning is a complex phenomenon, not done in isolation, but collectively, with the world around you. It is a creative process, is hard to explain, but easy to feel and experience. It is a journey, and it never ends. My journey as an educator has been one that is based on story, so in this paper, I propose to investigate myself and the world I inhabit. In essence, I hope to put Craig under the cloth and analyze myself and my practice as if it were a mysterious object. I am making no attempt to separate my story from the research, I hope to discover what meaning I have made of my wanderings. I will focus on collectivity as my primary space, and I will float to mathematics education. However, it is important to note that as a generalist elementary school teacher, staying within a single discipline is counter-intuitive.
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As a result, the ideas will gravitate towards math education, but on the whole, be more about education as a whole. Imagine this question, hanging in the background as you read; if, as Renert and Davis (2010) suggest, that an open way of being is a possible answer to the question of what mathematics teachers need to know, then what does an open way of being look and feel like in a classroom? Knowing how I know does not consist of a linear explanation that begins with a set point; rather, it compels me to realize that the world I see is not the world, but a world in which I bring forth with others (Maturana, 1987, p. 109). Humans beings have had over a hundred thousand years of evolutionary exposure to stories, so much so that it is a biological part of how our cognitive apparatus functions and brings forth our perception of the world (Haven, 2007). We think, and connect with each other, through story. These stories are collective and shared through culture. As one Zen proverb states; There is no me without you (Richie, 2007, p. 32). I have paused here at my current space to have a cup of hot tea. I feel immersed and gently floating in a network of interactions. In my story, there is a sense of connectedness between these interactions. I am unable to fully grasp it yet. I intend to explore this story through a meditative style of purposeful wandering (McKenzie, 2011). Japanese art has an aesthetic term, Zuihitsu, that I would like to play with. Translated literally, Zuihitsu means essay. The characters make up the literal definition. Individually, they have vastly different meanings. means to follow, in a free manner, not being defined by a particular style or form, and means the brush, or the pen (or in my case, the keyboard). Artists have translated the term as to follow the brush (Richie, 2007, pg 2). Painters in the zen style, or writers, quite literally surrender themselves over to the brush,
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or the pen, and allow the brush, the hand, and the mind to roam free in harmony (or not). The goal of this style of writing, or painting, is not to produce a logically sequenced piece of writing that points to a rational truth, but rather to explore the space freely, without the constraints of form. I will not be writing in the style of a scholar. I will be the only thing I know how to be. Me. I will float between several metaphors during this exploration, that may seem different on the surface but I see as complementary. The metaphor of zuihitsu is suggestive of a journey. The painters brush, or the writers pen, wanders through the medium. Think of the lines it creates as a path, with the entire whole being the sum of the wanderings. I intent to let my lines wander all over the canvas, finding new paths, and letting the picture emerge as it unfolds. That is not to say that I will wander without regard. Too much freedom of space shuts down the creative process by its lack of structure, whereas too much constraint can limit the possible paths and alternatives. Davis (2008) explains this tension as enabling constraints; simultaneously rule bound (constraining) and capable of flexible, unanticipated possibilities (enabling). Think of this taking place within a circle shaped canvas. This circle represents the concepts of knowing, teaching and learning as they pertain to the question of enacting knowledge of profound understanding of emergent mathematics. This is a large space. Inside this circle are three dynamic circles; each representing another large field; Mathematics Education, Complex Collectives, and Me. Paper cannot do this diagram justice, as it remains unmoving, and I lack the programming skills to bring it to life, but please envision it as flowing, the four dynamic circles moving within the larger circle, bumping into each other, overlapping, disappearing behind each other, growing and shrinking in size, and flowing like waves. I promise no realizations and no neat conclusions.
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This is the feeling, the way of experiencing knowing, learning, and teaching that I experienced all those years ago at Tokyo International School. This is what I hope to experience here again in this space. The Marshmallow Tower Why is all that stuff on the table? John said, pointing to the duct tape, string, sticks of spaghetti, and a lonely marshmallow. Thanks for noticing. I replied. In teams, you are going to use these materials to build a tower, if you want to. You can only use those materials. You have 18 minutes. At the end of the 18 minutes, we measure from the table to the marshmallow. Highest marshmallow wins. Want to try? Yes! Smiles all around. 18 minutes. Go. If I had wanted the children to build the best possible structure for the tower, and to have each tower constructed in the same way, I would have structured this activity much differently. It would have been much more linear and standardized. First, I would have led the students through a series of activities and descriptions of what a strong base is. Fastening it to the table in an appropriate manner would have been the first step. From there we would have gone up to the next phase of the building, namely, how it should begin to allow for the weight which will support the heavy top. Finally, we would have looked at the weight of the marshmallow, and I would have told them how to create a structure that would allow the maximum force to be carried at the top point. That however, was not the point of the activity. Building a tower was just the vessel we were traveling in. The purpose was problem solving, working cooperatively, and
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Figure 1: An orienting canvas

thinking creatively. Building a tower was only the provocation, an invitation to something more. What the invitation was though, was not yet clear. A Living Map After their sensational failure in building a tower, we unpacked the main ideas of the lesson. As an outsider listening to their reflections, it was clear to me that the main idea they were interested in was shape. Over and over again I heard comments about the shape of their base, the repeating patterns of shape in the structure of the tower, and the shape of the spaghetti sticks. It was clear that they were interested in investigating this concept in more detail. This activity sent us down the path of geometry, angles, architecture, and line. The mistakes they made were powerful artifacts in the learning that took place. The students were able to engage with these mistakes and use to swerve into new territories. This swerve opens a space for an emergent phenomenon (Johnson, 2001). As the teacher in this learning system, I did not have a pre-set goal at the outset of the activity. It was not my desire to project the learning onto the students. I was attempting to open up paths. I was hoping to invite them into inquiry. To me, that invitation is a vital step in the learning process. Handing a student an activity, writing the outcomes on the board, and going through the standards and benchmarks in a checklist like fashion is akin to taking a packaged tour of a famous city. The tour guide brings you to all the places they think you should know (or that their extensive market research tells them you would like to go to), and never asks you your opinion. It is not important in the grander scheme of things. Yu (2009) brings to mind the metaphor of a living map versus a dead map. A dead map is one that sets out one path for the traveller to follow, and the living map is one that opens the space to possibility and discovery. She makes the case that curriculum is similar, and rather than being linear and direct, it would open more space if it was more
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like a Zen journey. That is how we ended up studying shape, by following a living map, and exploring the space in front of us, and by being mindful of that space. Learning to Learn The living map of education compels us to change our perception on the purpose of education. If education is reframed as a zuihitsu, purposeful wandering, then the goal of education is not the prescribed curriculum. It is not the content. In a world of on demand information and services, education must change its view of the map. Education is about navigating the map. It is about learning to orient yourself in a sense of place and time. The purpose of education, as I conceive it, is learning about learning. In which Einstein says something profound I never teach my students, I merely set the conditions in which they can learn. [cited in Walter & Marks, 1981, p. 1] Einstein is onto something. Teaching is not about delivering information, transporting it from one receptacle (the teacher) to another receptacle (the students). With this view of teaching in mind, one would have to admit that the act of learning is about receiving said information, and the act of knowing is about recalling it. That sounds eerily similar to a machine. I do not think that the best model for teaching, learning, and knowing are mechanical systems. Teaching, learning, and knowing are organic, and like any organic system, it can become something new. What makes an organic system grow? Conditions. A forest needs sunshine, water, and life inside it to maintain the system. The human mind needs certain conditions to be met for it to learn. I think we have to embrace a series of new metaphors or if not embrace them, then certainly be aware of the metaphors we are using. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have shown, the metaphors we use alter and shape our perceptions of the world.
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Teaching is not about transmitting knowledge. It is about setting the conditions for learning to take place, and building relationships with other people, and with disciplines. Classrooms are not mechanical, they are organic. Each child in a classroom is a unique and individual agent, and when they come together and interact with each other, as a collective, unique things will happen. The teacher then, before setting any conditions, must be mindfully aware of the parts in the whole. They have to be aware of the individuals that comprise the collective. Learning about learning requires careful consideration of the conditions in which we learn, but not only from the teachers perspective. The children as well need this metalanguage if they are to position themselves in their learning environments, and to orient themselves on the living map. Purposeful wandering is not simply a matter of getting lost. A wanderer is never lost if they can recognize that learning is happening. Not only design, but also, awareness and relationships The conditions required for collective learning to happen are just one part of it. It is the easier part to write about, to research, and to create templates and frameworks. The other part is more difficult, but so much more substantial. One of my fears is that complexity science in education becomes a cut and paste approach. An anchor chart that goes on the wall. Here are the conditions of complex systems, and here are activities and strategies to do them. I believe that the true power of complexity science for teachers and educators is not in the design elements it affords us. It is in the awareness, the sense of being immersed in that web of connections and being able to orient yourself, to reflect, internally and externally, individually and collectively. Additionally, it is about relationships. Real, powerful, emotional, authentic relationships between people, and ideas.

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Exploring the Conditions I want my students to see the learning systems at work. To feel them. To reflect on them and begin to notice them on their own. Self-orientation to and self-adjustment of their individual learning through deep and meaningful reflection. Collectivity and mathematics are complex systems. Complex systems are evolving forms, yet they have certain conditions in common. Researchers in the complexity sciences have pointed to a myriad of different characteristics of complex systems. Chief among them is the idea of emergence. Emergence is how complex systems give rise to new forms from the multiplicity of the interacting parts. It happens during critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops. (Capra, 2002). I see learning as a new state of being or knowing. It arises from a students interactions with their environment, and it happens when students are puzzled, challenged, or in a state of wonder. Questions and curiosity are a driving force behind this phenomenon, and the willingness to engage in mistakes. Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler (2008) present a non-exhaustive and unobtrusive list of learning conditions. Understanding collectivity is understanding learning systems. Neighbor Interactions Going back to the tower, I notice that one of the key factors that led us down the path of shape, was listening to the collective, as we served around the mistakes we made. It wasnt just me listening to them, but them listening to each other. Their questions and comments played back and forth off each other, or as Davis has phrased it bumping into each other (Davis, 2008, p. 198). Each student is an agent in this learning system, and they will naturally bump against each other in the course of an activity like this. Neighbors can hardly avoid each other. We could stop there and view the students physical bodies
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and minds as the only agents in the system, but that would miss out on of whole world of potential insights. Neighbors that interact can also be ideas, hunches, queries, images, artifacts, and other manners of representation (Davis, 2008). I would add gut-feelings to this list, as each student in this class had an instinct that shape was an important factor in their failure. This could have very easily turned into an inquiry about measurement. Or an inquiry into famous buildings. Or construction methods in the modern or ancient worlds. But it didnt. It became about shape. I cant say for sure that one student pushed it in this direction it just kind of swerved that way. It was a collective agreement, though it was not voiced by a single agent in the system. Thats not true. It was voiced by me. The Consciousness of the Collective I made a decision in that moment, a decision to orient the attention of the class to something they were all discussing. We began to dissect this idea of shape. It was me who made that decision. In a sense, I selected out of a myriad of possibilities and selected the one which I felt would continue to challenge and pertubate the system. Davis (2008) has phrased this useful metaphor as teaching as the consciousness of the collective. He states that this metaphor is a suggestion that the teacher is responsible for prompting differential attention, selecting among and emphasizing the options for action and interpretation that arise in the collective. (Davis, 2008, pg. 172). Teaching framed in this manner becomes much more like a zuihitsu, a way to follow the living map of the classroom. Predetermined aims of education and curriculum can stifle creativity and innovation. William Doll brings to mind a lovely suggestion that curriculum should have no preset beginning, rather the beginning is the moment that enables collectives to plunge into the context and enables a matrix of connections to
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emerge (Doll, 2005, p. 56). Perhaps the plunge that Doll is imagining is selected by the teacher out of the collective. A culture of teaching to the goal arises, with the goal never being clearly articulated. If one is to prompt differential attention in the moment, one has to be listening and paying attention to what is being said and done by the collective. When we enter the realm of the unknown, we move beyond replication of established facts. By listening to my classes reflections and inquiries after the fact, I was able to move the discussion into a realm of space that was unknown at the beginning, but made complete sense to us in the moment. I do not always do this well. I find, in retrospect, sitting on my sofa in the evening, that I may have directed attention to the wrong moment. I missed a chance that I didnt see. It is hard to explain, and even more difficult to grasp. All I can do is continue to listen. Getting lost in a GoogleDoc A purposeful example of collectivity in action is an activity that I have done on several occasions, with groups of adults as well as children involving GoogleDocs. A collective of students can edit a document in collaboration in real time. You can literally watch others type, backspacing, spelling mistakes and all. While in the document, students are focused on their individual task, yet at the same time they are aware that there are many other students working on similar tasks (if not the identical) in the same document. Since the goal is collaboration, each student expands and amplies their classmates ideas. This is a constant process, and although it is a challenge on their attentional systems, the end result is usually surprising and invigorating. Ideas create new ideas, which spawn new thoughts, which lead to new insights. Through a hive like production of thoughts, the collective is elevated and the individual understanding is strengthened through the diversity of thought and opinion. The agents
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are interacting with each other, not is a physical sense with their bodies, but mentally with their ideas. This invariably leads to a decentralized system, as each student is free to connect with the thoughts they choose to connect with, and free to expand on the areas that interest them. Since the activity is largely anonymous, social cliques and groups that exist in every collective are discarded, and the collective functions more as a whole than it would while in the physical world of face to face contact. The students are now able to give and receive feedback in a system that allows that feedback to have a more profound impact on the collective. As a participant commented, there is a sense of losing yourself and joining a wave of collective purpose. Decentralized Control This activity is also a good example of another condition of learning systems. The control was decentralized and distributed throughout the class. Each student was given a task, one thing that they were supposed to do. From there, the information and connectivity between people, ideas, queries, and hunches spreads out. Groups of students whisper in small groups. One person types an idea, which sparks another idea in somebody elses head, which inspires two more, and so on. This is a network where information spreads fast. It is robust, since there is no centralized hub to go through. Clusters connecting to clusters. Questions can spread like wildfire John is sitting at his table and working on a fractions problem. He is trying to determine how to cut a submarine sandwich fairly so everybody gets an equal piece. He gets stumped on how to cut a piece into fourths. Does he multiply by , or does he divide? Puzzled, John asks his neighbor. The neighbor isnt sure either. One person at the table thinks it might be multiplication, but they are not sure. The question is posed to a different table. This table is also unsure, so the question travels in two directions; left to yet another table, and right to the final table. Quickly, only a couple of seconds have
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elapsed since John made his question audible, the entire class, all four tables, are thinking about the problem. There are several theories, but nobody knows the answer. I happen to be listening at the time, and I am able to orient attention and ask questions that will challenge their theories and lead us closer to the desired understanding. This type of situation happens all the time in a classroom. Information spreads along informal pathways, until it reaches the entire collective. The very act of John posing this question forces every students attention onto this problem. It is impossible to not think about it. The imagination is a cognitive mechanism that happens whether we want it to or not. A couple of things are very interesting about this scenario. First, John asked his neighbor. He did not put his hand up and ask the teacher first. This is because he knows the teacher will prompt him to ask his neighbor. This is deliberate design on my part. I am attempting to create a decentralized, or distributed network of intelligence in the classroom. If all the questions come directly to me, then the network will be centralized. There are many reasons why I do not want a centralized network. It is a great form of communication, but it is only as strong as the central hub. I propose that one of the purposes of teaching is to help kids learn to orient themselves in networks. Networks are not a strange concept for children nowadays. They get it. The technology they grow up with embodies this concept in its interface and functionality. Once they realize the different types of networks, they will realize their strengths and weakness and use them to make stronger connections to the people and ideas they encounter. Nobody in the decentralized network knew the answer, so the entire class then turned to the centralized hub. When I said earlier that I did not want a centralized environment in my class, I was not suggesting that a centralized network is an evil. On the contrary, it is incredibly useful. What I do not want, is the centralized hub to be the default
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network. As a teacher, I can now orient attention to the fact that the classroom collective tried to help, but now the class is falling back to the more robust node in the network. Making them aware of networks. This is another instantiation of teaching as consciousness of the collective. Not only orienting attention to the content that is being discussed, but orienting attention to how the collective is learning and operating. Learning about learning. A question is posed, or a resource is shared, via Twitter, Google+, or Facebook, and then it spreads informally over a network. Certain nodes in the network will spread it further than others, but the message will travel. Perhaps, if the historical tendency to equate metaphors of learning to the dominant technology of our time holds, the internet will be a more apt metaphor. This is not to suggest that other metaphors are now invalid, rather, they are no longer the default. Questions spread like wildfire, but so does knowledge. It frees minds and opens hearts. The subjects that we know as academic disciplines were built, and are being built in much the same way that Facebook works. In ancient Greece, there was no council of mathematicians that controlled all mathematical knowledge. Informal, decentralized networks were the norm. It is safe to say then that mathematics is a social phenomenon. If Elephants did Math Mathematics and mathematicians are part of social institutions which are made by humans. So then, we could ask whether mathematics is a creation of humanity, or is a positivist truth that humans are only channeling? Lakoff and Nez (2000) maintain that mathematics is a product of human beings, is shaped by our brains and conceptual systems, and the dynamics of human societies and culture. We have evolved so that our cognition fits the world as we know it. This theory is in stark contrast with the theory of positivist view of mathematics, also

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known as Platonism, which suggests that mathematics is out there, waiting to be discovered. It is inherent in all things. One of the common responses to the humanistic view of mathematics is that 2+2 always equals 4. This view is widespread in education and society at large. Hersh (1995) argues this question in the following way: 2 is a noun, an abstract entity that is based on an ideal form, not a physical one. This makes it a social construct. Something we all agree upon, knowing that any 2 brontosaurus are not identical beings. Parts of the physical world have stability and consistency, as do parts of the social-conceptual world. The study of the parts of the world that have stability and lawfulness is called physics. Study of the lawful, predictable parts of the social-conceptual world is called mathematics. I like to think of elephants. Elephants are very different from human beings. They experience the world differently through different bodies. If they did math, it would certainly look different. They would have a different sense of number, of time, of distance, of shape. Their eyes are on opposite sides of their head. That makes experiencing the world different. They dont have a sophisticated language. They live very long lives. They are huge. Yet, they have a sense of number and can remember quantities (Irie-Sugimoto, 2009). But, do they have a sense of 2? Is 2 in their realm of experience? We will never know, but it would be very arrogant and human of us to assume that they do. We would assume that they would set up academies for mathematics, and publish journals in its name. But these very social institutions are also very human. And mathematics is a social phenomenon, done collectively by humans. Math as a Collective Network Mathematics is a social practice, an institution created by humans. It goes to say that the knowledge it produces is also a social practice, and a collective creation. It is its own complex system, a dynamic, evolving form that manifests properties that are typical of complexity (Mowat, 2010).
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The conceptual domains are nodes of mathematical knowledge, and they are connected in a web of relationships (Mowat, 2010). Being aware of this network can help teachers orient themselves and intervene. Students would also benefit from awareness, as it would allow for mathematics to be viewed in a new light. Knowing where one learner is in the network is not simple. On top of that, knowing where twenty children are in their own personal networks of embodied mathematics seems problematic. Especially as a generalist teacher who teaches all subjects. On the plus side, being in class with these kids everyday, I am able to develop a strong relationship with my students. There is a sense of trust, respect, and love. Therefore, interpreting the networks of embodied mathematics need not be an individual task taken on by me. It can be a collective affair, with all of our eyes trained on learning about how we learn math. The shape of curriculum What if our curriculums were developed not in a linear manner, but looked more like a network? With modern technology and school slowly blending together (slowly...) it would be very easy to create an interactive network of concepts. Each node could be a standard or a benchmark, but instead of traveling through the map of curriculum from year to year, we would be free to roam the network. The children could place themselves in nodes (with teachers assistance) and begin to set out plans and action for self-learning. It would certainly look and feel different for the participants inside it. Would the feeling of dread, and that sigh of disapproval that escapes our lips every time we open an official curriculum document disappear? A glimpse inside a complex curriculum Emphasis added by me. The complexity based curriculum would be dynamic, emergent, rich, relational, autocatalytic, self-organized, existentially realized by the participants, connected and recursive, with the teacher moving from the role as an expert
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and transmitter to a facilitator, co-learner and co-constructor of meaning, enabling learners to connect new knowledge to existing knowledge (Mason, 2008, p. 22). Complex Love I want to admit something here; viewing the learning system as a series of networks bothers me on a personal level. It seems cold. Disconnected from people. Is there a problem is the vocabulary of complexity thinking, referring to children as agents and nodes in a decentralized network? I wonder. Language is a powerful force, and the words we use and the metaphors we live by have powerful repercussions on our cognitive apparatus. I wonder. When I look back on my early classes and reflect on what were the strengths and weaknesses of my early teaching career, I am struck by a thought. During the early years, my relationship was primarily to the subject matter. Teaching space to grade sixes, natural disasters with my grade four/five class, reptiles and amphibians with my grade twos. There were some great activities and some great learning going on, but what I realize now was the lack of personal relationships. That is not to say that I did not have any kind of personal relationships with my students. Of course I did. What I am suggesting is that the relationships was not my explicit focus. The focus was on the content. A relationship between a student and teacher is a complex thing. Learning is not determined by teaching, but it is dependent on it (Davis, 2005, pg 86). In order for learning to take place in a world such as school, there needs to be a relationship between the one who is determined as the teacher, and who is determined as the learner. Of course, it goes both ways. A teacher learns from the student, and the student learns from the teacher. The teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher. This is an intimate relationship, and when embodied in a classroom, requires a shift of perspective. The underlying purpose is not the content, the mathematics or the understanding of
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multiplication, but rather the focus of teacher-student relationships shifts to the relationship itself. The conditions for learning, or learning about learning, none of this is possible without that sense of love and respect. Viewing students as nodes in a network, while practically useful, may distance us from the thing that we seek. We are not automatons who deliver knowledge. There needs to be a sense of complex love with our students, which I would define as an ebbing flow of listening, caring, understanding, and being fully present when we engage. Mathematical knowledge is important, but building loving relationships is essential. One enables the other. As I write that, I agree with the sentiment, but I am scared of some of the potential implications. We dont build the relationships because we want them to learn math. We build relationships because we are teachers, and that is what teachers do. Redundancy and Diversity Lets go back to my grade 5/6 classroom (interesting that a discussion of love snapped my attention back to my students) for a moment and look at another dynamic. Intelligent unities are simultaneously stable and innovative (Davis, 2008). A complex system can be both steady and unchanging and wildly creative at the same time. In fact, these two seemingly polar opposites are actually complementary, and completely necessary for the other to exist. Redundancy is the part of a system that is shared among its agents and allows them to work together. In the case of a collective of people, this is enabled by shared language, culture, interests, and so on. In fact, most groups have much more in common than they do differences. In education, this is implicit on many levels, as the kids in our classes often tend to be from similar age brackets, live in the same geographical locations, speak the same languages, and share common interests (even within a class like mine where the students are from a variety of different cultures and backgrounds, they continue
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to have much more in common than they do differences). However, if a system is too redundant, it loses an element of its intelligence. It becomes unable to respond to new fluctuations. This is where diversity comes into play. The strength of a learning collective lies in its ability to produce different ways of knowing, where the feedback loops amplify and create new interpretations. These diverse ways of seeing the subject allow for new understandings to emerge as the different ideas bump into each other, grow, and evolve. This happens at multiple systemic levels. Nested Systems A learning collective does not follow a linear path. A classroom is not a simple machine, nor a complicated one. From a systems perspective, there are many systems playing off each other, iterating, folding back on themselves, and expanding what is possible. These multiple systems affect one another and are affected by each other. The parts make up the whole, and the whole is made up of the parts. Each series of nested systems is unique to its own sense of time and space. I will give an example from my current space. Think of a child. Im thinking of Kyle 5, a boy in my class who is incredibly adept with mathematical facts and problem solving. A tall boy, kind of awkward, but in a strangely confident way. He can be a bit short with people, not always polite, and he gets frustrated working with others. He prefers to work alone, and when very engaged in a task, needs a great deal of personal space. He is a system (and inside him exist a number of unique bodily and cellular systems). Each child in the class is their own system with their own history, their own minds, and their own sense of self. Put those minds together and we have a collective of learners. That collective is its own system. It learns, it affects each individual member. pseudonym
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The teacher is part of this learning system, connected to them. There is a tendency to see the teacher as above the class. This is a social construct of our culture. Teachers are learners, and they are part of the class. Moving outwards to the next system, we see that the elementary school in which we reside is its own system. We have different schedules, different approaches to pedagogy and different levels of language and understanding. Our elementary school has its own unique feel different from the whole school, with its overall culture. The culture of the high school and the culture of the elementary school may be different, yet when they come together, they create their own space, and have their own culture. They are two systems nested within a larger system. Since we are not a public school, we are not connected to a local community of schools. Instead, we have a co-evolutionary relationship with the other international schools in Japan, of which there are many. These schools communicate with each other, they influence each other, and they provide a space for learning from each other. Each one of these circles is a system. You could study each of them in detail, and learn how they operate individually. However, you would not fully understand each individual system without seeing the larger whole in which they are embedded. Additionally, you can learn about other systems by studying their folded and unfolded systems. The effect that each system has its subsystems is determined by the proximity.

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You see, Kyle left in April, went to a new school and a new challenge. The effect on the grade 5/6 collective was huge, like a missing finger. We adapted, moved on, and a new sense of what grade 5/6 is has emerged. The effect on the elementary school was also Figure 2: Nested Kyle

present, but not as deep. We miss Kyles leadership and ability to peacekeep solutions to disputes at recess. Moving out to the whole school level, since we are a small school, we feel it every time a student leaves. However, when one leaves, another arrives, and the overall effect is not as great. As for the outer level, I am sure the international schools in Japan are not reeling from the lose of Kyle, they would hardly notice. The time scales and levels of effective relations are dependent on the proximity of the systems. Each system is complex, and each system is made up of agents, be it students, classrooms, or schools. The whole of all these agents allows a greater form to emerge. These agents make the whole so interesting and unique, because they are different, the way they interact with each other opens new paths to emergent possibilities. The collectives at each level intertwine and wrap around each other and create new levels. Growing Definitions In order to allow my students access to the collective knowledge, we have developed an activity we call growing definitions. It is a way to make our own personal thinking visible, and a way to grant others access into our personal realm of understanding. However, it is not just sharing our thinking with others. The (explicit) central purpose of this activity is to allow our thinking to be influenced and changed by the

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thinking of others. It was adapted from a poetry activity presented in Engaging Minds (Davis, 2008). Start with a word, or a concept that you wish to define or investigate. This is best done after we have already spent some time with the concept and looked at it from different angles. In a sense, it is a recursive act in sense-making oriented to the human capacity of having thoughts loop back to themselves (Doll, 1993, p. 177). Each student will write a definition of that concept individually. Then, when we are comfortable with our own work, we share with a partner, and allow our joint responses to create a new response. This requires a critical eye on not only on our partners work, but our own. We analyze our thinking, compare and contrast it, and allow a new form to emerge. From there, we get into smaller groups of four, and repeat the process. This recursive nature of the activity is what makes it so powerful, as you revisit the definition, you are tracking a living genesis of your own thoughts as they evolve (either on paper, sticky notes, or using digital mind mapping tools). Happening in tandem to your own evolution of thought, you are living within a collective and letting all agents co-evolve together. Finally, we get together as a group and share our foursome definitions. We then begin the process of deconstructing and reconstructing all of the ideas as an entire collective. At the beginning of the year, I will admit that I was the driving factor behind this stage. I pointed out key elements, I oriented their attention to interesting paradigms or embodied metaphors. Yet, as the year progresses and we continually revisit this strategy, the children are becoming less dependent on me, and are taking ownership of the activity. Growing definitions suggests that the collectivity of a group is a natural and emergent phenomenon. It does not mean that individuals give up their individuality and join a Borg-like society of connected computer brains. On the contrary, for an individual to be part of a collective, they need to be as independent and diverse as possible (Davis,

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2008). If they are not being independent, they are not bringing diverse perspectives, and this is not seeding the soil for an emergent phenomenon to occur. It is razing it. The Seeds of Collective Beings Maturana and Varela (1987) offer a suggestion as to why we are a collective species in their concept of structural couplings. They argue that living beings communicate through coordinated behaviours that are mutually triggered among the members of a given social unity. This human social system is structurally coupled to the linguistic domain, connecting humans to each other in behavioral patterns acquired in the communicative dynamics of social environments. The members of that social environment may change with each generation, but the structural coupling continues and linguistic domain allows it to continually evolve. We find ourselves in a world in which we bring forth with others. We keep learning, and we pass our learning down to others. Mind and consciousness belong to the realm of the social coupling. Put simply, collectives are a part of us, and we are a part of collectives. We change them, and they change us. How does this influence teaching and learning in a classroom? Truthfully, I dont know. I do know this, that an activity like growing definitions acts as a powerful orientation to a sense of collective-awareness. If education is about learning to learn, and part of that involves an explicit awareness of the conditions in which learning takes place, then understanding the role of the collective in learning is an essential part of the whole. Any discussion that does not include this element is incomplete. Knowing, as learner, how you learn is powerful knowledge. It allows you to notice conditions, systems and loops all around you, and then utilize them. Negative (regulating) and Positive (amplifying) Feedback Rather than think about it as negative and positive feedback (since those words are so culturally loaded), I will steal a term from a mentor of mine and use the term regulating feedback (negative) and amplifying feedback (positive).
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Amplifying feedback is a loop in the learning collective that pushes the collective output in a certain direction. One child gets excited about a project, her excitement spreads to another, and soon you have the whole class engaged. Also, an amplifying feedback loop could work in another manner, where a task is too difcult and leads to decreased resilience which spreads through the collective until everybody is feeling frustrated. The important point to remember here is that the output continues along this amplifying path, whether for the good or the detriment of the group. Regulating feedback loops work in a different manner. They stabilize or dampen the system by feeding their output towards a limit. If the goal of the class is to get to a certain grade or score or certicate, then the scope of possible paths of emergence and learning are limited to that goal. Cheating and other counterproductive measures may break out as a result of a goal-oriented system (Meadows, 2001). However, a collective may also have a shared set of behavioral values and rules that limit the scope of what is acceptable and allow the collective to remain at a level of shared dynamics. If speaking out of turn is frowned upon by the group as rude and disruptive, the regulating feedback loop will stabilize that behavior and create more opportunity for all voices to be heard, which will lead to a greater diversity of opinions being expressed and more possibilities. When I think of feedback loops, I think of improv. My students and I have been on a year long inquiry into how improv works. We have been playing games and following a set of principles. One of the key points is the rule Yes, and... (James, 2009). This rule stipulates that you never say no to another actor, but rather you take their offering and add something new. This metaphor/rule has become sacrosanct in our classroom. By saying no, we are turning away possibilities. We want to grow. A window into the classroom A classroom is unpredictable, and the learning that happens in the environment will emerge out of the interactions of the teachers, students, and provocative artifacts in
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the learning environment, either physical or abstract. In order to traverse this terrain, this ever-changing and constantly evolving landform, a teacher needs to be many things and wear many hats. Above all, we need to be comfortable with improvisation. Sawyer (2011) argues that creative teaching as improvisation is not just making it up as you go, or going with the flow, but rather, it occurs within broad structures and frameworks, with clear goals and intentions. The difference between the improvising teacher and the scripted teacher is that they see the structures and frameworks as guideposts around a field, not as the field itself. The space in which we are free to roam, not the road which we must take. The living map versus the dead map. This is a difficult place to live and work on a daily basis. I struggle with it all the time, moving from moments where I see myself as being improvisational and in the moment, to moments where I feel I am trying to pass along information via a one way tube. As I progress in my career and become more self-reflective, I am beginning to notice these moments more and more. Yet, I still struggle with how to avoid them, or if I should avoid them. My attention can only be directed in so many directions, and I can only pay attention to so many stimuli and markers before I start to lose the plot. Funnily enough, when it is working, and I feel as though I am in that moment which Cskszentmihlyi (1990) would call flow, it is easier to spot and the room seems so much more alive. I introduce a math problem to my class. I hope that it is interesting and engaging, because it is hard to learn something if it doesnt make you curious. They begin to engage with the problem. At the outset, my job is to field questions to make sure that everybody understands the context. Once everybody is on the same page, we begin to solve problems. Everybody reads the questions slightly differently, or understands pieces in slightly different contexts. Our individual sense-making is different from person to person, as are our individual histories. By listening to them work, and by having their thinking visual (through specific teaching strategies and cooperative work), I am able to probe and
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dissect their thinking. I can then challenge them to expand their sphere of understanding in new directions. One person may be struggling with a basic concept of addition, while another is incorrectly applying an embodied metaphor, another is getting stuck in the process of problem solving itself, and another is just not seeing it due to lack of organization. Each child is going in a different direction, and working on different skills. The original problem may be related to adding fractions with unlike denominators, but the skill set that is involved in solving that problem is so much more than the specific skill of finding the lowest common denominator. This scenario makes it seem simplistic, and very centralized. The teacher in the middle, directing all the learners in different directions. It is not at all like that. Layered on top of this is the attention to the collective, and how the collective is learning. Nested systems. Different feedback loops at play. I can then move them around, make groups of like minded strugglers, have them work through things together, ask them to redirect their question to a peer, or simply ask them just to listen to the way others are speaking. Ideally, I would not be the one directing traffic. If they are empowered learners aware of themselves as learners in a complex system, they will seek out the answers on their own. At the end of all problems, we come together for what Fosnot (2001) calls a math congress. The purpose of the math congress is to collectively support the mathematical thinking and reasoning in the classroom learning community. The focus is on sensemaking, and not on correcting mistakes. This is very similar to the Japanese strategy that has been oddly translated in the west as Bansho Math (bansho is Japanese simply means the act of writing on the chalkboard) . In Bansho Math, each group presents their methods, strategies and problems to the rest of the class. The rest of the class is invited to think critically about the other groups strategies, and to compare and contrast their own. Then, the strategies
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themselves are given a meta-analysis and sorted in a way that orients attention to certain learning outcomes. During all of this, the teacher acts as a conversational facilitator. The teacher orients attention to aspects of the problems that are intriguing, problematic, or just plain interesting. What drives these forms of mathematical instruction is not the answer. Rather, they are driven by talking about the answer, and also, the multitude of ways to represent the answer. The collective talking is the most important aspect. Groups of students are collectives, and collectives have the capacity to learn. The knowledge created by and in a collective can be owned by the collective and the individual. Conversation is driven by the collective, with the teacher as a member. Sawyer argues that if this process of collective dialogue and sense-making is scripted, then learners cannot co-construct knowledge (2011). Instead, he calls for improvisation as the dominant metaphor. He states:

The sociocultural perspective implies that the entire classroom is improvising together; and it holds that the most effective learning results when the classroom proceeds in an open, improvisational fashion, as children are allowed to experiment, interact, and participate in the collaborative construction of their own knowledge. In improvisational teaching, learning is a shared social activity, and is collectively managed by all participants, not only the teacher. In improvising, the teacher creates a dialogue with the students, giving them freedom to creatively construct their own knowledge, while providing the elements of structure that effectively scaffold that coconstructive process. (Sawyer, 2011) For many teachers that I know, this terrain is not a difficult by-product of the profession. This terrain, the complexity, is the reason we do this job. It is fun. It is
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fascinating. It fills us with wonder and questions. It makes getting up every day worthwhile. It makes us learners on a daily basis. Awareness of the Conditions The conditions of complex systems are NOT a prescriptive method of teaching, and they are NOT a way to teach. There is no conditions for emergence checklist, and if you see one, approach it with caution. There are conditions, as we have explored here. For teachers, it is not a checklist, it is a mindful awareness of the environments that we inhabit, whether they be biologically, culturally, or environmentally nested. An understanding of how the characteristics of a complex collectives learning system operates would help teachers to enable occasions to allow the emergent nature of these activities to come to life. Being aware goes beyond the role of the teacher. At the beginning of my exploration of complexity and its metaphors, I saw it is as something that teachers were aware of, and something they used to design learning tasks and environments. Looking back, I see that I was mistaken. This is a powerful meta-language for learners to have. It orients them to their own learning, and helps them learn to learn. At the end of the day though, my role is that of the teacher. These conditions have changed the way I see the role of the teacher. It is not just about setting conditions or being aware of them. It is inviting the learners to see them as well, just as I am trying to invite myself to look at me in this reflection. When the learners see themselves as learners, the dynamic of the classroom changes. The teacher stops being the only designer in the room, and now must be aware of how all these other designers are designing their own learning experiences. Many years ago I fell in love with teaching because of the creativity it afforded me, and the outputs I was able to produce. Now, I see teaching not only as a creative action, but as a profoundly creative way of being.

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Additionally, I am now wondering about pedagogy. I am always telling my students that I need them to make their thinking visible. This allows us to investigate how we learn, and helps us to learn to learn. It is central to everything I do in my classroom (though I am still figuring out how to occasion this, and struggle on a daily basis). Should I be making my thinking visible? I often tell them why I want them to do things in a certain way, but should I be more explicitly making my own pedagogy visible to the learner? Or am I doing that already? Concept study as learning What would an active model of learning look like in which the learners are explicitly aware of the conditions in which they exist, and are collectively building and rebuilding knowledge? Not only building and rebuilding knowledge, but aware of themselves as learners and how their learning is changing? A concept starts with a group of teachers getting together to explicitly investigate a concept related to mathematics (Renert and Davis, forthcoming publication). Ideally, they should be from a diverse range of backgrounds and levels, but all be passionate and curious to analyze their own beliefs (redundancy). There is a leader present, whose responsibility is to orient attention to realizations, to challenge, and to perturbe (consciousness of the collective). The teachers start by listings all of their realizations, initial thoughts and ideas about the concept. Anything is game, and anything is relevant. Next, they move onto landscaping those realizations, organizing them into a pattern that makes sense. Then, they analyze that landscape, and pull together and blend the entailments into a new way of viewing. Throughout the process, the teachers are aware of their emerging realizations in a larger network of the collective, how their connections are affecting the other participants, and where their ideas are coming from. They are substructing their own beliefs, and rebuilding on top of what they knew before. They have an open disposition and consciously engage with emergent properties that arise. In the
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end, they are able to use these new understandings to make them better teachers, and to understand their students, and how they think, at a deeper level. This is exactly the type of learning environment I want in my classroom. Change the word teachers to students, and the word mathematics to any other subject, and you have a beautiful example of a collective learning community. This is the culture I strive for in my classroom. The open way of being that Renert and Davis (2010) suggest, has been best experienced in my personal situation, through purposeful wandering. I frame concept study as not only a way of being with mathematics or teachers mathematical knowledge, but a way of being with teaching, learning, and knowing. In Defense of Wandering Henry David Thoreau captured the essence of wandering beautifully in the 1850s: it is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. Though Thoreau used the word sauntering, I see how clearly he has influenced my approach to teaching and learning, and my sense of wandering. My goal of wandering is to wander. The goal of being is to be. The other day I was wandering my neighborhood with my son. We were walking along an old drainage ditch, looking for insects in the early spring sun. I noticed a tunnel behind a mangle of old trees, snaking underneath the overpass that roared above us. That overpass was like white background noise, always there, but not noticeable. We walked under and emerged in the middle of a dense forest of Japanese maple trees and thick bamboo. To our right was a makeshift path, crudely cut. We followed it and found some stairs made of old milk crates dug into the earth, gently turning up a hill. At the top of the hill there was an electrical tower, kissing the blue sky. The path continued past it. We followed the path, and for the rest of the afternoon, we were immersed in the forest, surrounded by the sounds of leaves rustling, birds chirping, bugs singing. The overpass was silent.

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This zuihitsu has been a great wander around many ideas. There may not be any clear realizations, there may not be a model to use, and there is no neat conclusion. What there is, is a more robust sense of understanding of how collectives shape us and how they play in the classroom. Its funny, at the beginning of starting a Masters of Education program, I thought I would graduate with a clear and defined purpose. I thought that I would be one of those uber-confident speakers at conferences who knows everything and speaks in absolutes. Instead, here I am, lost and wandering with many more new ideas inhabiting my world, a much more reflective self, but still not really knowing how or why teaching and learning occurs. After all this time, I still dont know what is under the cloth. And you know what? That is exactly the way I want it.

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RESPONSE Following the brush: A response to wandering through collective spaces


Michael Craig

In wandering through collective spaces, Craig Dwyer has offered us the Japanese

term Zuihitsu, which he interprets as a purposeful wandering although he does point out the many layered quality of this word. It is the layer to follow the brush (Richie, 2007, p. 2) that i would like to unpack further. It may be that Zuihitsu richly captures an artistic nature of collectivity, and it is this artistic nature that i would like to explore. ! It is exceedingly interesting that Dwyer has chosen a metaphor associated with

perhaps the most individual of all the art forms in which to enfold notions of collectivity. When one thinks of the a zen artist or painter with a brush engaging with their craft, one generally pictures the solo artist, alone with his or her thoughts, the canvas on which those thoughts will emerge and the brush that will connect the two. And yet this simple image holds much potential for the ideas expressed by Dwyer around collectivity. Perhaps we can see this potential in the question whose is the hand that guides the brush?

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Whose is the hand that guides the brush? ! It may be the solo artist. Dwyer gave us Kyle, a young boy who prefers to work

alone, and when very engaged in a task, needs a great deal of personal space (p. 60). As Dwyer suggests, Kyle is a system unto himself, comprised of many nested systems within and part of many greater systems. Although alone, Kyle represents a collective. His hand on the brush, Kyle engages with his ideas, guiding the brush to emergent learning and understanding that is both relevant to his context, his history, his mind, and his sense of self (p. 60). Whose is the hand that guides the brush? ! Perhaps there are many hands. Dwyer also describes collective as many agents

within the system, many Kyles if you will, each with ideas that come together in neighboring interactions in such a way that they create new ideas, which spawn new thoughts, which lead to new insights (p. 52). These agents in this the collective are working together, hands lightly on the brush, guiding it in a way oddly akin to a Ouija board, where the emergent ideas coming forth on the canvas are surprising to each individual and representative of each and yet more than any individuals contribution. Whose is the hand that guides the brush? ! At another layer, we could consider that the collective resides in the brush itself.

However this would seem to call for a hand to guide the collective. In this layer, Dwyer offers us an understanding of the collective of the consciousness, the teacher, as that hand on the brush. Here, while it is the collective brush that is in fact occasioning the emergence, the teacher, both part of the collective through contact with brush, and separate as a consciousness removed, acts to set the conditions of the system, orients the brush to the boundaries of the canvass, and guides them through the living map by selecting out of a myriad of possibilities...the one that [he or she feels] would continue to challenge and perturbate the system (p. 51).
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We might also consider that this consciousness of the collective is dynamic,

emerging from the brush itself to guide and orient the collective before rejoining the collective with other hands coming forth to take its place. Dwyer captures this notion in his explanation of a decentralized control. Whose is the hand that guides the brush? ! And as this image of a dynamic hand guiding the brush emerges, so emerges

another layer where perhaps hand, brush, canvass and paint are all the agents in the complex system. If we hold to this image, then perhaps it is the emergent artwork that is in fact the collective. Emergent, and as with all art pieces, dynamic in how it lives with those that will view it past, present and future. In this, Dwyer offers us concept study as both the act of creating the artwork as well as how that artwork will continue to live in the context of those that engage with it. Indeed, many of Dwyers language around concept study landscape, patterns, blend, viewing (p. 70) - seem to evoke images of visual artistry. So whose is the hand that holds the brush? ! Is it the individual? The collective? The consciousness of the collective? The

artwork itself? Yes. To all. That is the beauty of the image that Dwyer captures in Zuihitsu. Following the brush as an image of collectivity enfolds each of these ideas, recursively reinforcing each of these levels. Whose is the trunk that holds the brush? ! On a nal note that might be a purposeful wander to the side, I am struck by

Dwyers discussion of elephants and math. As Dwyer suggests, elephants are different from human beings. They experience the world differently through different bodies...They would have a different sense of number, time, of distance, of shape. Their eyes are on the

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sides of their head. That makes experiencing the world different (p. 56). Yet elephants also follow the brush. Here I offer an image from the Calgary Zoos artistic elephant, Kamala entitled Pachyderm in Paradise. This reminds me that collectives are a natural experience our collectives are in fact part of greater and grander systems. To dene them and limit our understanding to simple denitions would in turn be contrary to this nature.
Pachyderm in Paradise. Retrieved June 5, 2013 from http://www.calgaryzoo.ab.ca/ content/view/96/254/

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RESPONSE Purposeful wandering: the recursive feedback loop for [organic] teaching collectives
Jennifer Markides

Looking back at the path travelled, reflecting on the early years It is not surprising that teachers can begin to feel immersed in curriculum subject matter, since we are legally mandated to teach content and concepts from prescribed Programs of Study. Dwyers (2013) reflection on his early years of teaching is likely similar to the experience of many teachers; we did our best to meet the requirements of our new jobs, stringing together curriculum topics in logical and integrated segments (formerly units). As we teach longer, we become more comfortable with the planning, organizational and managerial aspects of our work, freeing up more time for creative thinking around other dimensions of our work with students.

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Realizations that come with experience One thing Ive learned from my time as a teacher and in the MfT program is that we can never be certain of all that a student is going to learn from a lesson; what they will take away; or what they will remember. All we can do is try to create a memorable experience, an engaging dialogue or reflective opportunity that might resonate with them in some way. The teacher is not the keeper of the knowledge, but we do have other gifts, talents, experiences and stories to offer. A pause for reflection on my own practice Sometimes when reading someone elses work, you see your self in it. Thanks for holding the mirror up for me at times. A few years ago, I too used a marshmallow and spaghetti building activity (on the first day of school even) to initiate a challenge amongst new peers; to build anticipation about the new school years curriculum topics; to encourage students to collaboratively problem solve and open dialogue in small groups (before I knew a thing about collectivity, I sensed the value in this type of learning experience); and to re-direct the focus of nervous attention from themselves to an engaging task. It created a shared experience coupled with excited energy that set a tone for the start of our year. The task was challenging, some groups met with great frustration while others splintered into subgroups. Ultimately, the experience signaled a need for trust and hinted towards the beginnings of decentralized control. Towards the end of that same year, I had a substitute teacher come in who commented that she felt that everything was up for debate in [my] class. I realize that this may have made it difficult for the guest teacher, but in some ways I felt an overwhelming

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sense of pride. The students in my class were not questioning authority to be rude or disrespectful; they were asking for justification when the reasons or demands on them were not obvious or clear. I had come to see that given a clear purpose from the tact of mutual respect, the students would entertain almost any request. They would place themselves into unfamiliar experiences and inhabit the space of not knowing solutions to problems at hand, trusting that the struggle would be worth the self- satisfaction from figuring it out together. Enfolding on the notions of Dwyers wandering Similar to the resiliency depicted above, Dwyer describes the students willingness to engage in mistakes (p. 11). This is a difficult place to be for students, as I also described in Chapter 2, students need to spend some time in the state of the unknown, to work through it, and to see the benefit of having done it. Especially in math, students need to become comfortable with uncertainty, positing and even erring. By means of collective experience and dialogue, students begin to see that they are not the only ones struggling and muddling their way through the problems. The feeling of safety in numbers certainly applies in the classroom as students become more self-conscious and increasingly selfaware. Self-similar but not scale dependent: are we talking about the same thing? I find it interesting that Dwyer suggests a shift in educational focus towards learning about learning (p. 8). I might say that learning about [themselves in] learning is a means towards self-advocacy. For me, self- advocacy manifests in the students meta-cognitive awareness of learning processes and experience. It can be demonstrated in obvious and subtle ways, in words, actions, or thoughts. Specifically, I wonder what does learning about learning entail for Dwyer?

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In partial agreement, I still must question Dwyer describes the perceived benefits of Google Docs for the qualities of anonymity. When I consider the aspects of collaboration in both anonymous and face-toface interactions, I find it difficult to discern which is better. For some activities it may be beneficial to have social cliques and groups that exist in every collective... discarded (p. 13); but in other cases, does the group not also benefit from social norms and graces? I would ask, too, what might be lost in anonymous forums for sharing of ideas? Having used Google Docs many times for group writing, I do see the advantages this medium affords. My quibble is perhaps in the claim that, the collective functions more as a whole than it would while in the world of face to face contact. [And that t]he students are now able to give and receive feedback in a system that allows that feedback to have a more profound impact on the collective (p. 13). To this, I would argue that there are many factors that would influence the impact that the feedback has over the collective, such as the quality and nature of the responses, the readiness of the collective to receive the feedback, and the supportive structures within the collective to use the suggestions for growth. Again, I do not completely disagree with Dwyer; instead I would argue that there are merits for both. Resounding as truth (in my own experience) In Dwyers exploration of decentralized control, he describes a nuance of his classroom culture, which encourages students to seek support of their peers before coming to him. This strategy is widely used in Montessori classrooms as a means of cultivating a students independence. By approaching classmates first, the student is less reliant on the teacher. This is an embodiment of the Montessori philosophy that describes the classroom as belonging to the students.
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In contrast, Dwyer tells of an instance when the students have exhausted the expertise of their classmates and redirects the question to the more robust node (p. 15) in the classroom network. Does this imply that teachers are the robust nodes in all classrooms? And does this apply all of the time? It would seem counterintuitive to teach students alternative strategies for solving problems independently, only to have them default to asking the teacher when the problem goes unanswered. Upon further reflection, perhaps this is still a better way. Not in summation, journeying onward While framed as a journey of self-reflection, Dwyer has presented the reader with many substantiative observations and opinions to ponder. At times he waxes eloquent with, freeing minds and opening hearts (p. 16), but wouldnt we all like to have a teacher (for our own children) with a healthy, yet romantic view of teaching. His poetic and optimistic style of writing, reflecting and reinterpreting gives rise to a jaunty, meandering, and whimsical journey through a colleagues perspective on self in practice. Most significantly, I agree with his stance on the importance of relationships. It was affirming and humbling to read his honest and open account of how his practices changed over time. In this regard, he illustrates a pedagogical shift from a focus on subject matter to students matter. In sharing his purposeful wander, I feel closer to my friend and to myself in teaching, with deep gratitude.

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CHAPTER 4 Improvise, Conduct, and Critique: Conditioning emergence in the mathematics classroom
Michael Craig

If we consider that the open way of being with an evolving domain of mathematics education, as suggested by Davis and Renert (2010), represents an answer to the question of what are the mathematics that teachers need to know, then what would seem to be called for is a different engagement between teachers, learners and the domain of mathematics at the classroom level. Traditional, and perhaps current or Modern, classroom ideologies would seem insufficient, firmly entrenched in Newtonian thinking, which, in addition to having profound implications in the area of mathematics education, helped to usher in the Age of Reason and give birth to the scientific method. If one is to assume such a Cartesian understanding, then knowledge is an object that can be transferred from one individual who holds that knowledge to another who is to receive it. Learners are passive and learning is process of simple cause and effect relationships. Indeed, over time, a series of
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best practices can be developed and through these, one can successfully deliver a course of instruction in mathematics. Assessment is equally simple. If the recipient remembers or knows what they are told, then the transfer has been successful. If not, the method can be adjusted and tried again. Results can be tested and measured using empirical methods and reported using quantifiable data. This philosophy of education, according to Steffe and Keiren (1994), is characterized by the idea that the structures of mathematics were thought to be attained by capacities for reason, logic, or conceptual processing (p. 711) and as having a mind-independent existence (p. 712). However, complexivist thinking may provide a lens through which to observe and create proscriptive structures for a different conceptualization of the mathematics classroom including instructional and assessment practices. Indeed, complexity thinking may provide important implications for the mathematics classroom that may lead us, not to the sciences or even the humanities, but rather to the visual and performing arts for the design of appropriate environments for learning and assessment practices. Specifically, I want to look at the role of teacher in the design of these environments and for the assessment of learning within these environments. More specifically, I want to explore how aspects, intrinsic to the visual and performing arts, might enable an open way of being with mathematics and the learners in their environment. Based firmly in the sensibility of complexity thinking, I see the role as fractal and scale-independent, both of which are considered hallmarks of complex systems, with teachers acting in simultaneity at multiple levels, three of which I will explore: Improvise, Conduct, and Critique. While these may seem at first to be reminiscent of Daviss (2008) nested systems (see Figure 1),

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Figure 1. From Davis, B. (2008). Complexity and education: vital simultaneities. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), 46-61.

I would encourage readers to call to mind the image of a tesseract6, continuously folding and unfolding in such a way that each layer is simultaneously enveloping and constraining itself and every other layer. However for the purpose of this paper, and due to the limitations imposed by this literary structure, we can consider them nested as illustrated (see Figure 2) with the role of Improviser nested within the role of Conductor, with both nested within the space of the Critical Connoisseur.

Critique

Conduct

Improvise
Figure 2.

For animation refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tesseract.gif 88

In the following sections we will explore improvisation as interpreted through performing arts discipline of music and theatre, the performing arts role of the conductor or director as the consciousness of the collective (Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kapler, 2008), the Feldman visual arts critique, and the affordances each of these disciplines holds for the mathematics classroom. But first it may be important to situate both the disciplines of visual and performing arts as complex systems.

Recently I had the opportunity to observe the unfolding of a rather remarkable mathematics lesson in a classroom. The teacher Mrs. Baker1 had proposed a simple word problem on the board involving a given number of bicycles and tricycles, with the intention that the student would come up with the total number of wheels. As predicted, a few students solved the problem quickly and with what seemed to be little effort, a large number spent a few minutes grappling with the problem but were able to come to a correct answer, and a small number of students struggled with the problem, some getting answers of various accuracy, some defeated by the problem, and some disengaged and distracted completely. Mrs. Baker then flipped the question, asking instead what would happen if you were given the same number of wheels? How many different combinations of bicycles and tricycles could you make? Students were encouraged to work individually or in small groups as suited them and were provided with a number of different manipulatives with which to work. Students quickly set to the task with a higher level of engagement, sharing ideas, possible combinations, and strategies for uncovering more solutions. The teacher circulated quietly through the group, asking questions, prodding thinking, and orienting attention to successful strategies, all the while making notes, not only of which students were successfully coming up with solutions, but their strategies, communication skills, and group dynamics. It should be noted that every child was actively engaged in the task and every child was successful in generating at least one combination.
1

All names have been changed

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Part One: Arts disciplines as complex adaptive systems In order to determine if the arts disciplines might provide a model for occasioning emergent understanding in the mathematics classroom, we first must determine if the arts disciplines themselves meet the criteria for complex learning systems. Davis and Simmt (2003) contend that the key criteria for a system to be considered a learning system is that it must be adaptive, able to change its own structure and as such is better described in terms of Darwinian evolution than Newtonian mechanics (p. 138) and emergent, i.e. composed of and aris[ing] in the co-implicated activities of individual agents (p. 138). Both the theatrical and musical art forms would also seem to meet these criteria. Composed of individual agents in the form of musicians and instruments, symphonic musical performances are themselves composed of the performances of each of those individuals working in collaborative and co-implicative ways, performing a single piece, each adding their own specific musical contribution, often determined by a composer. Timing, tempo, volume, and artistic expression must be maintained in a dynamic balance in order for the piece to be cohesive, and yet at the same time, each subsequent performance of the same piece is a distinctly new and different experience for both the performers and the listeners. In this sense it is emergent with agents residing on one scaleproducing behavior that lies one scale above them (Johnson, 2001, p.18). Similarly, theatrical productions are the emergent result of a collective of actors, each with individual character, motivations, and roles to play, working collaboratively with playwright, technicians, designers, and the director to create a single performance of the piece. It is essential that each agent in the system works towards the collective goal, otherwise theatrical unity may fall apart. And yet, actors will often comment that each performance of the show is unique and distinct, often producing different reactions from the audiences and different emergent realizations for the actors about the performance.

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On the surface, a visual arts discipline would seem to be problematic in terms of this criterion, if we are to assume that the collective refers specifically to a plurality of artists involved in the process. However, given the fractal nature of complex systems, we can conceptualize agents in a different way: in terms of the interaction of the media involved. A visual artist, often working with various media and tools will create a distinct and fully unique piece of art. Michangleo Buonarroti (date unknown) was purported to comment, I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. This suggests an interaction between the material, the tools, and the hands of an artist working to create something unique and emergent. On the grounds that these systems must also be adaptive, we again see that arts disciplines meet this criterion. The collective nature of a musical performance is such that it requires performers to be both playing and listening at the same time. Musicians performing in collectives respond to changes provided by fellow musicians or feedback given by the conductor, making adjustments to their own performance in order to maintain the unity of the overall performance. Similarly, actors in a production rely on each others actions and dialogue in order to further the play. If there are changes in dialogue, movement, delivery or intention, the actors must make immediate adjustments to their own movement, dialogue, and/or delivery in order to keep the performance moving. Visual artists work consistently with changes that occur in the interactions of media. Continuing with the example of sculpture, given the complex formation of any given piece of marble, it is impossible to fully predict the result of each blow of a chisel. Adaptations to force and angles must be continuously made as the artist goes along. In each situation, what we see is that the overall performance or product, be it musical, theatrical or sculptural, is constantly adapting to internal dynamics and perturbations. Yet this is not strictly limited to such internal feedback. Both musicians and actors will frequently comment on how their performance can be affected by feedback from the
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audience, which on certain levels can be considered external to the system. In comedic plays, the response of laughter from the audience can feed the action and the lack of response will cause the actors to make specific adjustments to their performances. Musicians will also comment on the energy that they receive from an audience, and how it can either encourage or dampen the performance. Visual artists as well will comment on the role that a viewer plays, the experience they bring to the viewing of a piece, their histories and contexts, as part of the experience of the artwork. Each viewer bringing a unique perception external to the work will bring forth new realizations and interpretations, in effect allowing the piece to adapt and evolve, even though it is no longer being physically changed by the artist. What might be contested in the arts disciplines, particularly the performing arts, and in the mathematics classroom as well, is decentralized control, a common feature of complex adaptive systems identified by Davis and Simmt (2003). Critics might suggest that decision-making in both of the mathematics classroom and in these art forms lies predominantly in the hands of a centralized control, namely the teacher in the mathematics classroom and the conductor or director in the performing arts. Indeed, on the surface, it would seem as if all major decisions are made by these individuals. After all it is the responsibility of the teacher to plan, implement, and assess curricular objectives through the intentional design of lessons or tasks. While students may have options or choices, these are often pre-selected for the students by the teacher with a rigorous eye towards specific objectives. In the case of the performing arts, it is the role of a director to tell actors where to move, when and how to deliver a specific line, and have the final say on all design choices. And control would seem to be even more centralized when one looks at a symphonic production where the conductor stands and directs the orchestra from the front determining tempo, volume, and intensity of both individual performers and groups.

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This conception of the role of the director or conductor in the performing arts is both problematic in defining the performing arts as complex adaptive systems and in providing a model for occasioning emergence in the mathematics classroom. However, I believe that this is a misconception of the role, much in the same way that teachers are misconceived as the centralized controlling agency in the mathematics classroom. I will return to this problematic question later in the discussion of the role of the teacher but in the interim, I will begin by looking at the innermost layer of our model for conditioning emergence in the mathematics classroom.

Eventually the combinations were collected on the board. Student shared solutions and eventually suggested an order to the combinations discovered. Patterns were noted and discussed. At one point, Sarah said, I think we have them all. When asked how she knew that, Sarah pointed out that if they had any more bicycles they would have no wheels left for tricycles and if they had any less tricycles there would be no bicycles (the limits of the set) and that the pattern in between was complete. The teacher conded later that this was precisely the answer she was looking for and was about to conclude the lesson when Justin raised his hand. But what if you could have negative bicycles? A silence followed. The teacher waited, her tidy conclusion perturbed by the surprising question. Eventually Sarah replied, well i guess the combinations would go on forever then.

Part Two: Teacher as Improviser When we consider the role of the teacher in conditioning emergence, we might first look to the direct interaction between teacher, learners and the domain of mathematics. Stated alternatively, this innermost layer would look at the teacher and learners as co93

participants in the emergent development of mathematical concepts and ideas. What would seem to be called for is a discipline or way of being where participants are engaging in a process that follows structures or environmental parameters that result in such emergent mathematical knowledge, unlike its components [and irreducible] to their sum or their difference, (Emergence, Wikipedia, retrieved April 12, 2012). Improvisation is one such discipline and it can be found in performing art forms such as jazz music and improvisational theatre. In both of these improvisational performance art forms, there are emergent phenomena occurring. Yet rather than being something completely chaotic or without structure, these phenomena are to a certain extent intentional in nature. That is to say, that while the specific shape or final product of the performance is not predetermined or the summative result of deliberate actions, it is still recognizable as a dramatic play with a specific theme or a musical composition with unity. As an example, it would seem on the surface that the jazz musician is doing whatever they want, (Kane, 2004, p. 2). However, in reality a jazz musician is always following a complicated set of rules and being creative within the context of those rules, (Kane, 2004, p. 2). It is this structure or set of rules that enable complex emergence to take place. [T]he laws governing the expression of musical thoughts in the irreversible duration of jazz performance... resonate with those laws governing the behavior of complex systems (Rosenberg, 2010, p. 187). It is important to note that by structure or rules, we are not implying a sense of rigidity but rather invoking an image of boundaries or borders surrounding the creative space. In this sense, the formal rules which can influence jazz performance include specific guidelines around harmonic structure, the complicated structures of harmony that enable the improvisational soloist to communicate their art, (Kane, 2004, p. 3) and improvisational melodic structure, the phrases of certain length, placement, and shape
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that are found throughout improvised jazz, (Kane, 2004, p. 4). What underpins each of these rules however is that the jazz performer must be listening and aware of the musical performances of the other performers in the collective and be prepared to respond accordingly in order for a unity of performance to emerge. So while these rules may seem specific in nature, they act more to provide a structure for freedom or creativity. The musicians, in a sense, are free to experiment, invent and innovate within the confines of the parameters set forth by the rules. Indeed, such innovation might include at times intentionally bypassing the parameters, such as with Bebop where musicians, in effect, deviate from the calculus of music notation, (Rosenberg, 2010, p. 200). As Roesenberg (2010) notes this deviation becomes the crucial initial condition for the composing processes out of which new, more complex compositional forms like the jazz standard Ornithology might emerge, (p. 200). However it is not strictly the rules governing the form that enable a jazz performance. It also requires that each of the musicians comes to the performance with a similar set of skills and shared vision. In order to improvise, each of the musicians needs to have a similar understanding of music and trust in each other, coupled with the ability to share that understanding with each other. In other words they must understand the language of jazz. At its basic core, teaching improvisation is like teaching a language. The language of improvisation has grammar, structure, and dozens of dialects, (Kane, 2004, p.7). This shared understanding of the language allows for the individual jazz soloist to participate in the collective. When these two conditions are in play; the shared understanding of the language of jazz and an awareness of the rules governing the performance, it is then that each individual performer can maintain the presence of mind to cognize and then fulfill artistically a few of the musical promises that emerge in a single instant of the contingently complex sonic field of performance, (Rosenberg, 2010, p. 189) resulting in a collective
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jazz performance. In the theatrical discipline of improvisational theatre, we find a similar focus on the conditions of a shared understanding of the language of improvisation and an awareness of the rules that govern the emergent performance. Commedia DellArte, a theatrical tradition going back to 15th century Italy, for example, is described as a theatrical form characterized by improvised dialogue and a cast of colorful stock characters, (Meagher, 2007, Retrieved April 12, 2012). Its name, literally translated as comedy of art means unwritten or improvised drama, and implies rather to the manner of performance than to the subject matter of the play, (Bellinger, 1927, p. 153). Likewise with jazz, improvised theatre of this sort appears to be actors doing whatever they want on the stage. However, as with jazz, performers in the Commedia tradition follow rules and improvise within specific parameters. The subject was chosen, the characters conceived and named, their relations to one another determined, and the situations clearly outlined, all beforehand. The material was divided into acts and scenes, with a prologue. The situations were made clear, together with the turn of action and the outcome of each scene. When this general outline (called also scenario or canvas) was satisfactorily filled out there was left an opportunity for actors to heighten, vary, and embellish their parts as their genius might suggest (Bellinger, 1927, p. 153). Thus, rather than simply improvising a performance, the actors were expected to have a full understanding of their character, their motivations and how they would act in addition to a larger awareness of the overall theme or scenario that was to be followed. The characters had costumes, stock gestures and stage business which could be reckoned upon to create a laugh and put the audience in tune for the knavery that was to follow, (Bellinger, 1927, p. 154). Over time, these characters and interactions became part of the language of Commedia through the evolution of specific stock characters with a
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distinct set of attributescharacteristic speech, gestures, props, and costumesthat became standard to the portrayal of the character, (Meagher, 2007, Retrieved April 12, 2012). However, even with such specific stock characteristics, Commedia remained an improvisational theatrical tradition, meaning that the specific interactions, dialogue, and movement as the performance unfolded were left to the moment-to-moment choices of the actors, with each of those choices affecting the choices of the other performers in the situation. This adaptive complex system would ultimately result in an emergent performance. As with Jazz, it would seem that the successful emergence of performance in Commedia DellArte is dependent on the conditions of a shared understanding of language of Commedia and an awareness of the rules governing the performance. In this case, the shared language is the understanding of the various stock characters, speech and gestures. The awareness of the rules governing the performance in this situation would refer to the shared vision of how the performance would unfold in terms of the scenario or plot as well as specific rules around how actors are to listen and respond to fellow performers during improvised action and to the audience and their reactions. In this way actors were at liberty to tailor a performance to their audience, (Meagher, 2007, Retrieved April 12, 2012) which in turn would result in an emergent performance. As a result, an analogous model might be drawn from these art disciplines for use in the mathematics classroom based on the two conditions for successful improvisational performance; a shared language and a structure (a set of rules and/or parameters), for how agents may interact within the system and work collectively. Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler (2008) describe shared language as an aspect of system redundancy. They argue that in addition to serving as a sort of dynamic repository of collective knowledge, (p. 137) language is also one of the system redundancies that
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make it possible for agents to work together, (p. 195). With a shared language both providing the system with a memory and enabling interaction, a complex adaptive system may have sufficient robustness to compensate for internal and external perturbations and stresses (pp. 195-6). In the complex mathematics classroom, shared language may take the form of a shared understanding of the language of mathematics, including important vocabulary, shared meanings for operations and functions, and a collective memory where a history of interactions is kept. The intentional development of this shared language would seem to be key in the movement towards collectivity. And yet it is not necessarily or strictly prescriptive in nature but may also be emergent through the improvisation itself, much in the same way that any shared rules or structure for a jazz performance or a commedia scene may be both common, known, or determined at the outset and also emergent in the performance. As such, in the mathematics classroom, this shared understanding can be intentionally woven into the physical and intellectual fabric of a classroom: through mathematical discussion, specific work with new vocabulary, a rich library of resources that are both historical in nature, sharing the ideas and language of previous mathematicians; and dynamic, including student generated work, proofs and definitions. Language development in the mathematics classroom must however not seek to limit definitions, but rather create a culture of openness to further possibilities. Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler (2003) discuss this in great detail on the topic of multiplication. While some definitions might seek to confine the term to repeated addition or grouping, they suggest approaches that include these definitions while encouraging others such as sequential folding, grid-generating, changing dimension, stretching a number line, and much more (p. 196). In this way the vocabulary of mathematics is itself continuously emergent and evolving, along with the complex adaptive system that is using it. The second condition of structure or parameters to guide the interactions could be
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interpreted as what Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler (2003) refer to as enabling constraints. The parameters must be such that they support individual and collective learning, (p. 193) by being simultaneously rule bound (constraining) and capable of flexible, unanticipated possibilities, (p. 193). In the case of jazz, the rules govern specific musical interactions such as harmonic and melodic structures, which are sufficiently open to allow for creative expression but sufficiently constraining to ensure a musical aesthetic. The rules governing Commedia provide characterization and direction to the action but allow actors the freedom to improvise and adapt their performance to the responses of their audience. In the complex mathematics classroom, these enabling constraints must act in a similar way. They must maintain a delicate balance between sufficient structure, to limit a pool of virtually limitless possibilities, and sufficient openness, to allow for flexible and varied responses (Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler, 2003, p. 193). In problem solving situations, these enabling constraints might refer to the specific parameters of the problem itself. However, when considering the models of jazz and Commedia, it might be more appropriate to consider these enabling constraints in the same way we considered the common language condition as something to guide the collective. In this way, we would be looking for a set of rules or parameters that would both enable and constrain interactions in the mathematics classroom in such a way that new complex emergent understandings might form. Given the improvisational nature of both of these arts forms, it would seem to behoove us to look at traditional rules for improvisation through a complexity lens. James (2009) suggests seven principles for improvisation, each tied to complexity theory, which I believe may provide sufficient constraint while enabling innovation and problem solving when applied to the mathematics classroom. While these are excerpted and adapted from his work for the purpose of the mathematics classroom, one could consider them as
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parameters for any intentional learning environment. 1. Yes, and... Be fully accepting of the reality that is being presented, and add to it a new piece of information. This is what allows it to be adaptive, move forward and stay generative. 2. Make everyone else look good. Work towards enabling the work of others and improving upon it to develop their ideas fully. 3. Be changed by what is said and what happens. Allow new ideas to influence and change you. Change inspires new ideas, and that naturally unfolds what comes next. 4. Co-create a shared agenda. If you are truly responding to the moment, an agenda co-emerges that is more inclusive than anything that could have been planned. 5. Mistakes are invitations to be embraced. Mistakes are the stimulating anomalies that invite us into a new level of creativity. Mistakes break patterns and allow new ones to emerge. 6. Keep the energy going. Keep it moving. A mistake happens - let it go and move on. The unexpected emerges - use it to move on. Trust the process and just keep moving. The system is not static; it is alive and dynamic. 7. Serve the good of the whole. Always carry the question, "How can I best serve this situation?" By focusing away from how you will look into serving the larger good the aliveness of the system - you have more creative impulses and resources available to you at any moment, (excepted and adapted from James, 2009).

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Rather than closing the door on the task, this simple perturbation seemed to open up a whole new set of questions. One in particular, posed by Quinn, was what would happen if you could build unicycles too? How many combinations would you have then. Not knowing the answer the teacher simply turned it around to the group to see if they wanted to take up this problem. The answer was a resounding yes. I went back to the classroom each day for the next week during their math time as the group proceeded to try and find the answer. In the beginning, students tried to tackle the problem the same way that they had done with the bicycles and tricycles, by building models and completing patterns. Every combination that they theorized was written on a sticky note and collected on the white board at the front of the room. Rapidly, the board became a chaotic mess of yellow notes. Part Three: Teacher as conductor To this point, we have determined that there may indeed be potential for musical and dramatic performing arts to provide models for conditioning emergence in the complex adaptive mathematics classroom by intentionally developing a common language to enable system redundancy and neighbour interactions and by setting parameters based on the principles of enabling constraints. However, as these are based strictly upon the improvisational performing arts, we find ourselves confronted with the problems associated with mandated curricular outcomes, an often inescapable aspect of school mathematics instruction. This raises a question as to how might emergent mathematics understanding, enabled by the principles of complexity science and the performing arts, be given direction and shape? To answer this question, we can now look to the next layer of our image; that of the role of teacher as conductor and the question of to what extent roles such as a conductor, director or teacher are a centralizing control and thus confounding the notion of
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decentralized control and calling into question the complex adaptive system nature of the performing arts. One point in favor of such a nature is that emergence is not only possible but in fact a common occurrence in the performing arts. This would seem to suggest that the perception of the director or conductor as a strictly controlling force might be in error. In fact, when we look at the role of successful directors and conductors, the behavior would suggest a subtly different paradigm. In a 2009 study which looked at networked performances in distributed operas, one of the findings was that the role of the conductor turned out to be important in maintaining the flow of the musical piece and preventing the singers or the pianist from following each other, which would have resulted in the familiar recursive drag on tempo, (Olmos, et al., 2009). This would seem to suggest that rather than directing the action of both the pianist and singer, two of the performing agents in the complex system, the conductor's role was to pay attention to the direction of the performance and provide, in this case, negative feedback, feedback which regulates the system (Briggs and Peat, 1990, p.26), and prevent a positive feedback loop, feedback which amplifies (p. 26), from taking the performance into an unintentional and undesirable direction. Symphony conductor Roger Nierenberg described it this way: Your job as conductor is to get the orchestra to act together -- powerfully. So what do you do? You can't be calling out to people, "Act now! Act now!" That creates disorder. Instead, you say, "Here's where we're headed (Rosenfeld, 2001). This would seem to suggest that in fact, it is not only not the role of the conductor to be directive, but in fact this is actually counter productive to emergence. Rather, the role is to provide parameters, paying attention to the overall landscape, and showing people where the performance might go. According to Nierenberg, it is also the role of the conductor to enable the collective to work together by setting the conditions that will allow for emergence.
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Similarly in the theatrical arts, the role of the director, ironically a misnomer in this case, is not to provide direction but to provide vision. Successful directors limit their interference in the actors and designers decision-making processes. Directors project a vision for the play but are careful to avoid dictating how that vision will be accomplished. They provide guidance and suggestions, not direction, despite the job title, (Stuart & Tax, 2004, p. 622). This would seem to suggest that the role of the director is one that is both of the collective and larger than the collective. It plays an integral part in the workings of the collective, without controlling those workings, but at the same time retains a meta-view of the collective and the environment in which it is developing. The director works with a script (a product and agent of yet another collective agent, the playwright) and attempts to bring vision and set direction for the production. This would be analogous to the work that a conductor will do with a musical composition. Based on these initial ideas, integrated with vision, and within enabling parameters, the director or conductor guides the journey of the system, not driving it, but calling attention to how the system is developing. The end product, a play or musical performance, is an emergent phenomenon that has characteristics of the vision and composition, and yet is something greater and not something that is exactly reproduced in the same way in subsequent performances. What this would seem to suggest is that the role of the director or conductor is not a centralized control, keeping intact the decentralized control of complex adaptive systems, and thus meeting the condition set forth earlier by Davis and Simmt (2003). It also bears remarkable similarity to the notion of a consciousness within the collective which Davis, Sumara and Luce-Kapler (2008) describe as being more of a commentator than a controller. It does not direct, it orients. What one knows and who one is, then, are not determined by consciousness, but they are utterly dependent on consciousness, (Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler, 2008, p. 172).
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If this were true then this would suggest a way of resolving the problematic of mandated curriculum in the complex adaptive learning system mathematics classroom. As the consciousness of the collective, the teacher would be responsible for prompting differential attention, selecting among and emphasizing the options for action and interpretation that arise in the collective, (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2008, p. 172). Their job would be not to direct and dictate the actions of the students but, like the director or conductor, take mandated curriculum and provide vision, in the form of expected student outcomes, within an environment capable of enabling interactions (enabling constraints and shared language). As the system evolves, the teacher would provide formative and summative assessment7 , drawing attention to emergent learning, guiding discoveries, and helping to orient the other agents in the system. They would limit their

interference in the decision making actions of the agent in the collective, but still provide necessary perturbations to the system through intentional questioning and provocations. Finally, the role of the mathematics teacher is to enable the memory of the collective, through language and history, for subsequent interactions. Therefore, by drawing on the model of the conductor and director, the teacher in a complexity-based mathematics classroom can intentionally condition for emergent understanding.

Daniel, a quiet but thoughtful boy began to silently grab notes with 3 unicycles in them and moved them to another corner of the room. The teacher noticed this and pointed out to the class what Daniel was doing. A few student joined Daniel in his task and soon he was directing them to find other groupings. Leaders emerged and areas of the room became places for sorting around these leaders.

From a complex systems standpoint, this could be considered positive feedback (formative assessment) and negative feedback (summative assessment). I will describe these feedback more fully in the next section.
7

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Eventually all of the solutions were sorted into groups and posted for students to review. Quinn quickly noticed that there were discrepancies between some of the solutions. This one says 2 unicycles, 2 tricycles, and 12 bicycles and this one says 2 unicycles, 3 tricycles and 12 bicycles. They cant both be right. Students quickly began to question some of the combinations. Jeremiah suggested that they test them. Some built models to check, some looked at the patterns. At this point, Mrs. Baker suggested they look for a formula. Finding a combination that worked, they discovered that by multiplying the number of unicycles by one, the number of bicycles by two, and the number of tricycles by three and adding the products together that they should have 32 wheels. Students began to test all the combinations. While some students moved quickly to discard combinations that did not work, Quinn interceded and suggested that they keep them, Just in case.

Part Four: Teacher as critical connoisseur Observing and listening to the mathematical activities of students is a powerful source and guide for teaching, for curriculum, and for ways in which growth in student understanding could be evaluated. (Steffe & Kieren, 1994, p. 723) Mentioned briefly in the previous layer, one aspect of the teacher as conductor role is to provide feedback as the complex system begins to evolve. Yet the need to provide such feedback might require a perspective further out from the previous two layers of improviser and conductor. What may be required is a broader level of awareness, a perspective that can subsume and constrain these layers even as it perturbs and informs their evolution. Here it is that we can move to the outermost layer: that of teacher as the Critical Connoisseur and the role of feedback, or assessment, in the complex mathematics classroom. Elliot Eisner frequently relates Connoisseurship to wine connoisseurship (Eisner
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1976, 1998, 2002). He notes that for the wine connoisseur, it is not enough simply to be able to distinguish between a red and a white or even between different varieties of whites. Being a connoisseur means being able to make fine-grained discriminations among complex and subtle qualities (Eisner, 1998, p.63) of that which we are evaluating. Eisner describes this ability as epistemic seeing (Eisner, 1998) or acquiring knowledge through sight (although he goes on to comment that he means sight in a much broader sense that encapsulates all sensory experiences) and goes on to discuss both primary epistemic seeing, awareness of the particulars, and secondary epistemic seeing, awareness of particulars as part of a larger system or set (p. 68). Once seen, connoisseurship requires the appropriate application of criteria to the instance, (p. 70) and within the field of mathematics education, such criteria are far more complex than evaluating a wine. Criticism is essentially the process of enabling others to the see the qualities of something. As Eisner says (1998), effective criticism functions as the midwife to perception. It helps it come into being, then later refines it and helps it to become more acute (p. 6). In an educational context, this relates to the collective values, experiences, stories and embodied histories of the entire profession. It is our sharing of knowledge. This sharing of knowledge is essentially accomplished through feedback. Feedback can be described as the product of a complex system, which when returned to the system affects the system's continual development. There are two specific forms of feedback. The first, positive feedback, is that which "tends to increase the event that caused it, such as in a nuclear chain-reaction. It is also known as a self-reinforcing loop" (Feedback, Types of Feedback, Wikipedia, retrieved July 23, 2011). Positive feedback has the quality that it will continue to increase the output of the event continuously unless it encounters a barrier to its continued increase or collapses under its own growth.
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The second type, negative feedback, "tends to reduce the input signal that caused it [and] is also known as a self-correcting or balancing loop. Such loops tend to be goalseeking, as in a thermostat" (Feedback, Types of Feedback, Wikipedia, retrieved July 23, 2011). In complex systems, negative feedback loops serve to provide a stop or a balance to the self-reinforcing positive feedback loops. Individually, neither form of feedback is sufficient in itself to enable function within a complex system. Positive feedback will continue to grow a phenomenon until it becomes so large that it is unable to sustain itself. Negative feedback, once meeting its goal, goes no further and the system becomes stagnant or dies.8 Both forms, the reinforcing growth and the goal seeking, are required in dynamic balance in a healthily complex system. Capra (1996) in The Web of Life describes this dynamic balance: The flexibility of an ecosystem is a consequence of its multiple feedback loops, which tend to bring the system back into balance whenever there is a deviation from the norm, due to changing environmental conditions. For example, if an unusually warm summer results in increased growth of algae in a lake, some species of fish feeding on the algae may flourish and breed more, so that their numbers increase and then begin to deplete the algae. Once their major source of food is reduced, the fish will begin to die out. As the fish population drops, the algae will recover and expand again. In this way the original disturbance generates a fluctuation around a feedback loop, which eventually brings the fish/algae system back into balance. (Capra, 1996, p. 85) This would seem to suggest that feedback is a naturally occurring part of a complex system's development, integrated and developing naturally from the workings of the system itself and concerned with growth in the system.
In Chapter 3, Dwyer describes these as amplifying and regulating feedback in order to avoid the cultural connotations with the terms positive and negative. While I recognize these connotations and agree with his use of the terms, I use positive and negative deliberately in order to try and reclaim them for complexity science with their original meanings intact.
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The implication for assessment is clear, however. Often in educational matters, assessment and feedback are used interchangeably. If the mathematical classroom is indeed a complex system, then for successful growth and development, a balance between positive feedback (self-reinforcing) and negative feedback (goal seeking), despite being innate to the system, may require constant attention and monitoring if the learning system is to grow and develop. However, turning solely and exclusively to the disciplines of the sciences proves insufficient in seeking a model for assessment of a complex adaptive mathematics classroom. Often influenced by Newtonian sensibilities associated with cause and effect and the desire for objectivity in results, many of the disciplines associated with the empirical sciences and the scientific method prove inadequate on their own when dealing with complex systems. Indeed, even models of assessment associated with the social sciences or humanities often seek objectivity in their assessment, a separation of assessment and the assessed. What may be needed is a discipline that accepts even as it problematizes the intersubjective nature of assessment, particularly of the complexitybased classroom. It is at this point that we may be able to draw on the discipline of the visual arts for a sufficient model. Arts assessment, while often criticized for its lack of objectivity, recognizes its subjective nature. Despite this, assessment of the arts continues to occur from the professional level of the art critic to the individual layman. Quality arts assessment, in addition to taking into account personal taste and perspective also addresses skill and context. Long a proponent of the arts as providing a model for critical connoisseurship , Eisner proposed three dimensions for an arts-based critique. The descriptive dimension is the first step that an art critic would take in providing a critique - describe the current state. As Eisner explained (1985), this should be sharp in descriptive detail. Like in art criticism,
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language and figurative speech are used as emphasis while describing the aesthetic dimension of any emergent mathematics in a complex classroom. During this process, an evaluator may look at elements such as the products being produced, the questions being asked, theories and conjectures being formed, and the impression of the class on the students within. All of these create a general aesthetic picture. In the next portion of the critique, the interpretive dimension, the evaluator takes their description and attempts to understand the meaning and deeper significance to the emergent mathematical understandings as a whole. In this phase, the evaluator is drawing on multiple theories of knowing, various viewpoints, and a variety of models to interpret the activities in the educational environment (Koetting, 1988). From the point of view of the evaluator, in this dimension there should be a developed sense of theoretical knowledge, and a wide series of criterion. The final dimension of educational criticism is the evaluative dimension. Here, the first two dimensions are merged into a final evaluation, where the significance of the description and the effects of the interpretation are evaluated (Koetting, 1988). As with connoisseurship, the private practice of evaluation, educational criticism also takes on an evaluative dimension. During this stage, educational criteria are necessary to judge the experience, and this is where the expertise of connoisseur becomes essential in Eisners opinion to the process. Another model of arts assessment is Feldmans methodology of arts critique (Feldman, 1981). Widely regarded in the visual arts as an authority in the arts critique and education, the Feldman critique includes the three stages as suggested by Eisner, adding a fourth stage, and providing an approach that is meant to be experienced in a sequential way. He argues that: [T]here is a systematic way of behaving like a critic, just as there is a systematic way of behaving like a lawyerArt criticism may not have the form of a legal debate
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but it does have a form. We must become conscious of the form, process, or system we use in making critical statements. (Feldman, 1981, p. 471) The stages in a Feldman critique are (a) description, (b) formal analysis, (c) interpretation, and (d) evaluation or judgment (Feldman, 1981, p. 471). While Feldman recognizes that one could break down these categories further; to some extent they overlap (Feldman, 1981, p. 471). Each of these stages, explored here in turn, highlight possible connections or implications for the critical connoisseur in their application to the complex mathematics classroom. Description The description phase is described as a process of taking inventory, of noting what is immediately visible (Feldman, 1981, p. 471). At this stage, Feldman suggests that the critique is constrained to what is present, without passing judgment on what is seen. In cases where the work is realistic, we can note the names of things that we see (Feldman, 1981, p. 472) and in the cases where the work is more abstract in nature, [w]e are obliged to describe the principle shapes, colors, and directions we see (Feldman, 1981, p. 472). In addition to describing the specifics observed in the artwork, a Feldman critique also requires an attention to the execution of the piece including skills and methods employed. Again, one is not to judge the level of skill, merely the processes observable in the piece. However when it comes to technique, viewers are dependent on the knowledge of the critic (Feldman, 1981, pp. 472) drawing into the description phase the expertise that the critic brings into the assessment. In the context of the critical connoisseur in the mathematical classroom, this phase would entail accurate description of the products of the mathematical tasks as well as specific skills being employed in those tasks. Judgment of the product or the skills would be avoided at this point, however, in the assessment of skills, a certain level of expertise brought by the assessor is expected to contextualize the observation.
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One important feature of this stage, in a complexity framework, is the observation of what is there, not what is not there. This is key in that it situates the critical connoisseur within the critique and activity, offering feedback on what is present rather than attempting to distance the assessor from the learner to enable a pathological approach fixated on the deficits or what is not there in the system. A second important feature is that when the expertise of the critical connoisseur is recognized, a sense of where the learning is nested within larger systems is brought into the assessment but not in a judgmental fashion. Formal Analysis In the second stage, formal analysis, we try to go behind a descriptive inventory to discover the relations among the things we have named (Feldman, 1981, p. 473). The critical connoisseur is asked to begin to try and determine a story behind that which has been observed and described. In a pedagogical context, discussion with the student can facilitate this understanding, provided the critic is prepared to ask questions that probe rather than seek confirmation of their own suspicions. At the same time, Feldman recognizes that the idea of the viewers expectation is very important in formal analysis (Feldman, 1981, p. 474). The interaction between the viewer and the work is becoming blurred; the story behind the observations could be viewed as construction of the viewer or a social construction of viewer and artist. Feldman (1981) argues that it is plain that in making a formal analysis, we have been accumulating evidence for an interpretation of the work and a judgment of its excellence (p. 474) however at this stage such judgment and interpretation is still reserved where possible. Rather the purpose of this stage is to move from an objective description of forms to statements about the way that we perceive themgroping for a principle of organization, an idea or a set of ideas which can account for the way the work is structured (Feldman, 1981, p. 475).

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In the context of the complex mathematics classroom, at this stage the critical connoisseur would be seeking reason or rationale behind the actions or the products that have been observed in the description phase. Where possible, the students themselves may be the ones to offer this rationale, but lacking experience or deeper understanding, the expertise of the critical connoisseur may again come into play to provide further detail or vocabulary. Interpretation The third stage and the one that Feldman describes as tremendously challengingcertainly the most important part of the critical enterprise (Feldman, 1981, p. 476), is one where the critical connoisseur engages in the process of expressing meanings of a work the critic has analyzed (Feldman, 1981, pp. 475-476). Again at this stage Feldman cautions against judgment, instead focusing on discovering its meanings and also stating the relevance of these meanings to our lives and to the human situation in general (Feldman, 1981, p. 476). Feldman suggests that at this point, the work of the critical connoisseur is to place the artwork within the context of the human experience and although recognizing that to do so, the critic will be consciously or unconsciously drawing upon both expertise and certain values, that the uncovering of the ideas present in the work is what is important. He also recognizes at this point: That the artist is not necessarily the best authority on the meaning of his work. As critics we are interested in what the artist thinks about his work; we are interested in anything he can tell us about it. But we regard his views as material which requires confirmation by our own methods of analysis and interpretation (Feldman, 1981, p. 476). It is at this point where the intersubjective nature of the critical connoisseur is fully recognized, and where as Feldman (1981) suggests variation in perception becomes
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troublesome because we are faced with the problem of making statements about art which others can accept without surrendering their individuality (p. 477). In the complex mathematics learning system, it is at this stage that perhaps the teacher is beginning to situate the skills or product within the larger context of the understanding of mathematics. While the students may be able to offer insights in this situation and while those insights might be of interest, the primary role of the critical connoisseur is to see the work in the greater context and recognize where it is supported by the discipline and where the world and experience of the learner may need to be widened. At this point however, the critical connoisseur may also need to be aware of personally held values including, but not limited to, an understanding of ethnomathematics, scholarly mathematics and mathematics education. It is at this point as well that the question of how much mathematics a mathematics teacher may need to know might enter the model and the importance of a teachers open way of being with the domain of mathematics and particularly through concept study as suggested by Davis and Renert (2010). Evaluation or Judgment The final stage in a Feldman critique is the most controversial, even in Feldmans opinion. He states, if we have thoroughly interpreted a work, the business of evaluation can often be omitted (Feldman, 1981, p. 476). In the evaluation or judgment phase, the purpose is to give the work a rank in relation to other works of its type. This aspect of art criticism is much abused and may be unnecessary if a satisfying interpretation has been carried out (Feldman, 1981, p. 483). He does go on to say that there are certain situations where this is unavoidable however, and in those cases, such judgment may be required. Two ways identified to accomplish such a ranking suggested by Feldman include comparisons with historical models (1981, p.484) and the relevance of technique. In the
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former, the critic is asked to compare works with similar historical work in order to seek a range of meaning and a power of expressionWe do not seek the same values, but the same capacity to support values (Feldman, 1981, p. 485). Work is therefore not compared in terms of having equal quality to historical exemplars but rather comparing its artistic potential to the historical models. In the consideration of the relevance of technique, Feldman suggests looking at the craftsmanship or skill involved in the creation of the piece; it is idea and materials simultaneously united through the employment of technique (Feldman, 1981, p. 485). He suggests that rather than looking at how well the work has been accomplished, disconnected from the idea itself, we look at the two elements in concert; the execution of the idea through the technique, and how successfully it has been achieved (Feldman, 1981, pp. 488). In the complex mathematics classroom, this may be where dialogues around norm reference criterion, standardized achievement tests, and summative reporting come into play. Just as Feldman cautions that such summative and comparative judgments can be abused and at times unnecessary (Feldman, 1981, p. 483), there are times and situations where this is unavoidable. Evaluation against historical models in this case may be evaluating a students work against a historical process or established algorithm. Again, one would not evaluate it in the exactitude that it has to these models but in the student models mathematical potential in context. In terms of judging work for its craftsmanship, we would not look at how the students are using tools such as technology, strategies, or manipulatives in isolation from the mathematical concepts that they seem to be pursuing or solution to the problem. Rather we would be exploring with what level of skill they appear to be employing those tools within the context of the idea or problem. This would seem to speak to a need for a problem-based learning approach over a series of repetitive skill questions.
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While the Feldman model for a visual arts critique would seem to hold promise as a model for the role of teacher as critical connoisseur in the complex mathematics classroom, one potential and frequently raised criticism of such a model is in the intersubjective nature rather than a newtonian objective and measurable quality. However, most current practices, as suggested by Watson (2000), are highly dependent on many subjective conditions such as the teachers attitude, emotions of the child, and interpersonal/non-verbal knowledge (p. 77). A key difference between such practices and an arts-based model is that in the latter, the subjectivity is directly acknowledged and accepted as part of the assessment practice without pretense towards objectivity.

As they worked, Mrs. Baker noted two girls sitting off to the side, quietly chatting. They are probably disengaged and off task, she whispered to me. Moving over to the girls to redirect them to the task of testing, Mrs. Baker asked them what they were doing. Sarah and me were just trying to figure out if it was possible to have the same number of bicycles and unicycles but a different number of tricycles, explained Jessica, matter-of-factly. Pleasantly surprised that the girls were trying to find cases to disprove what was already an accepted theory in the classroom, Mrs. Baker simply told the girls to carry on and walked away. In the end, a large number of combinations were found but the students rapidly discovered that they were nowhere near the end of the problem. One student noted, just adding in the unicycles made so many more combinations than when we had just tricycles and bicycles. Given that we were coming up to a formal school break, the class decided that the answers they had and the understandings they had developed where sufficient. For now.

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Summary If we are to accept a complexivist view of the mathematics classroom and the open way of being with mathematics that Renert and Davis (2010) suggest may be an answer to the questions of what are the mathematics that teachers need to know, then there are significant implications for the practice of teaching mathematics. It would seem to call for a different engagement between curriculum, learners, teacher, and the environment for learning. While there are implications in each of these domains, the role of the teacher may be most important to examine, as it is this role that often orients and guides the engagements. One thing is clear however. In seeking models for the reconceptualization of the role of teacher, turning solely or exclusively to disciplines of the sciences or even humanities may be insufficient. What would seem to be called for is a network of disciplines that is firmly grounded in principles of complexivist thinking and it is here that the intentional inclusion of arts disciplines in this network, both performing and visual hold great promise. As we consider the nested, folding, subsuming, and constraining quality of the role of teacher, three aspects of that role would seem to emerge, each supported by models found in the performing and visual arts. We have seen how having a shared language and adhering to structures such as the rules of improvisational theatre and jazz music as a way of conditioning emergence can influence the role of teacher, in direct engagements with learners and curriculum. We have explored the roles of the conductor and director in theatre and music as models for a consciousness of the collective role that a teacher might take in orienting and guiding the collective towards the emergent mathematical understandings. And finally, we have looked at the principles of visual arts critique and how they might be considered as a model for assessment, with the teacher acting as a critical connoisseur.

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At this point, each of these models, interacting together, would seem to suggest a different and emergent role of teacher in the mathematics classroom. What would seem to be called for is action research into how these dynamic roles, improviser, conductor and critical connoisseur, might play out in these environments, collecting the stories and experiences of teachers as they explore the often ignored potential that the disciplines of the arts might hold for occasioning emergent mathematical understanding in the classroom, which in turn may lead us to ways in which to engender these capacities in todays educators.

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RESPONSE A Trans9-Formative10 Experience Artistry on many levels


By Jennifer Markides

Considering the multitude of pathways available for responding to Craigs (2013) Improvise, Conduct, and Critique: Conditioning emergence in the mathematics classroom, I feel compelled and inspired to explore his chapter through a reflective narrative approach.

Act 1 Skepticism: A not-so open way of being In the beginning of his argument, Craig (2013, p. 82) provides a surprising and perhaps controversial line of reasoning. He strings together Newtonian thinking, Age of Reason, scientific method, a Cartesian understanding and concludes that these inform the metaphor for learning where knowledge is an object. If one were aligned with this argument, it would logically follow that the sciences offer little value in advancing

Trans- across, on the other side of, beyond, through, indicating change, transfer, conversion (Trans-, Wiktionary, retrieved June 23, 2013).)
10

Formative pertaining to the formation and subsequent growth of something, capable of forming something, producing new, shaping (Formative, Wiktionary, retrieved June 23, 2013).
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educational practices. Others might contend that Craig has created a straw man, or false other, with which to juxtapose a visual and performing arts perspective. Later, Craig is borrows terminology from math and science to describe the work of the sculptor, Adaptations to force and angles must be continuously made as the artist goes along (p. 87). When I consider arts examples, it would seem that they focus on the end product, rather than the process: the play vs. playing, the composition vs. composing, the riff vs. riffing, etc. Though, I find the examples of conductor and director intriguing, with clearly drawn connections to teaching.

Act 2 Curiosity: Where is he going with this? Craig goes on to describe the interplay between artists and audience, stating that: Visual artists as well will comment on the role that a viewer plays, the experience they bring to the viewing of a piece, their histories and contexts, as part of the experience of the artwork. Each viewer bringing a unique perception external to the work will bring forth new realizations and interpretations, in effect allowing the piece to adapt and evolve, even though it is no longer being physically changed by the artist (p. 86). This statement echoes the idea that the work lives on after the artist has gone, a legacy. Similarly, the impact or reach of a teachers influence can never be fully known or realized, as the relationship lives on in the mind of the child beyond their school years. In the classroom, a teacher may begin a dialogue, preform a demonstration, initiate an inquiry or introduce a protocol; how the students perceive and elaborate on the instigating event can be interpreted as the role of both the players and the audience. The dynamic exchanges live beyond the moment.

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Act 3 Appreciation: The arts metaphors are beginning to sing Craig describes the subtle rules of the arts that enable and constrain the artists. From the outside, onlookers may not see or know of the underlying tensions that hold the piece together. The cultures of classrooms and schools follow underlying sets of rules upheld through a complex myriad of interactions between the players/agents. The enabling constraints and shared language described by Craig create the cohesive pathways that sustain the networks viability. Students might lead by example; self regulate, or discourage behaviour that is deemed unacceptable within the culture established in the system.

Act 4 Interpretation: A difference of opinion Describing positive and negative feedback loops, Craig draws a parallel between formative assessment and positive feedback, and summative assessment and negative feedback (p. 98). This would assume that all formative assessment keeps the system vibrantly sufficient (Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler, 2008). When assessment is done for learning, there is a sense of productive purpose, determining next steps. However, the connection between summative assessment and negative feedback is less substantive. Summative assessment may be seen in the forms of high stakes tests, unit exams, or other concluding assessment that does not directly inform instruction. I do not see summative assessment as negating growth of a system. Negative feedback as described by Craig, tends to reduce the input signal that caused it [and] is also known as a self-correcting or balancing loop (p. 101). Does summative assessment cause the

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system to self-correct or balance? Also, does formative assessment not encouraging selfcorrecting and balancing loops as well?

Act 5 Enthusiasm: Where can we take this next? Craig masterfully sets up the fit of arts-based assessment for the complex classroom, stating: What would seem to be called for is a network of disciplines that is firmly grounded in principles of complexivist thinking and it is here that the intentional inclusion of arts disciplines in this network, both performing and visual hold great promise (p. 110). I appreciate the clarification that Craig provides while embracing the art-based model, recognizing too that the subjectivity is directly acknowledged and accepted as part of the assessment practice without pretense towards objectivity (p. 109). A clear argument has been made that neither science-based nor humanities-based approaches have yielded desired and effective assessment tools, and perhaps will not solely provide the answer. As Craig has described, assessment practices have been inadequate, and [w]hat may be needed is a discipline that accepts even as it problematizes the intersubjective nature of assessment, particularly of the complexitybased classroom (p. 102). Instead, an interdisciplinary approach should be considered, cause and affect alongside process and product through the lens of performing arts assessment.

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RESPONSE An artistic collective


Craig Dwyer

Michael Craig has offered forth a model of conditioning emergence that is grounded in being with the arts. It is not an easy task to take complex phenomenon such as teaching, learning, and knowing and fit them into a framework that maintains the complexity. I think that he has created a model where these values are able to be expanded on and explored in a way that does not delimit their inherent complexity. It opens a space where the learners are free to enter into the pedagogy, and it provides the conditions for a sense of collective-awareness through purposeful wandering. I would like to present a picture of how this may look in action: Improvise As a collective, we are wandering through spaces that have constraints (ideally, we have built those together). Different students will wander through different spaces, being driven by their curiosity and a sense of wonder, all the while being as individual as possible. Questions will merge, groups will form, inquiries will branch out, collaboration will ensue. Their wandering is their improvisation, and the space is the rule-bound structures. A shared language, bound by the subject content, keeps all learners on the same map, and as a collective, allows them to improvise collectively. They are interacting in a fluid
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motion, with each other, with the subject content, and with the teacher. What emerges is a picture that could not have been painted by any one member of the collective, but is shared by all. Conduct With all these wandering bodies and ideas bumping into each other, it may appear to be a chaotic storm. This chaotic storm needs a vision, a beacon on the horizon to help with the orientation. The teacher is acting not as centralized authority, but more like consciousness of the collective, helping the students to orient themselves in a decentralized manner within the content and the collective. The teacher moves over to one group and directs their question to another group, while sending individuals down individual paths, or merging them with other individuals. The curriculum itself is also acting as a stabilizing force, keeping the space within the grasp of the learners, as teachers and learners are explicitly aware of the map. They are invited into the curriculum and the pedagogy. Individuals students ask individual questions, they join dyads, larger groups, find common themes across the entire collective, stop and investigate them, and continue their wandering. The teacher is not pushing everybody to the goal, but rather helping them be aware of the movements of the entire collective and the space they occupy. Over time, the collective will begin to orient themselves, will learn how to learn. They will spot the emergences and they will act as consciousness. Critical Connoisseur Through feedback, the collective will begin to wander into emergent spaces. If no feedback is given, then the wandering will not be purposeful, and being lost will be the order that emerges. Teachers can provide this feedback, but they alone are not responsible for the assessment of new ideas. All members of the collective need to be aware of how their feedback is affecting all others. Together, teachers and students can
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purposefully provide feedback to lead to emergences. They can do this by describing what they see, and investigating the differences in description. By searching for the rationale behind these descriptions, they can begin to tease apart and subsume their prior understandings. If the students do not have the necessary background knowledge, the teacher can play the role of expert and provide concepts that fill in the gaps (or the collective can find a novel solution) in order to arrive at new interpretations of concepts. The collective could then begin to evaluate their understanding of these concepts by noticing and reflecting on the journey in which they have taken, and contrasting their journey to the journeys taken by those before them, enabling learners to connect their new knowledge to the existing knowledge of a larger subject domain. The collective classroom and the conditions in which they operate are participating in a continuos dance of expression and learning. They are flowing in and out of each other, affecting and being affected by each other. Like a Jazz Musician, or an improv actor, they are listening to this flow, improvising to the fluctuations, composing the flow, and recursively reflecting on the feedback they are experiencing.

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CHAPTER 5 Recursion, Emergence, and an Invitation


Michael Craig, Jennifer Markides, and Craig Dwyer

It is at this point in a formal paper or book that the authors would tend towards offering up some sort of conclusion or summary. And while each of us would like to find some sort of closure or definitive aha to share, we are reminded of the sensibility of complexity thinking that underpins our work to date and this piece specifically and as such we feel that a conclusion would be both too linear and too newtonian in nature. Too linear in that the intention of this offering is not to read it from start to finish, proceeding in a neat and orderly way through the chapters, despite having an artifice of numbering, but rather to be able to read any part, in any order -- chapters, responses, introduction, invitation -- and experience emergent realizations. Indeed, the choice of how to take up our work should follow a sense of purposeful wandering or zuitsu (if you have read chapter three already this word will be a recursive notion and if you have not, then this is a foreshadowing). As such it would be hubris to say that all who take up our work must end up here. Too newtonian in that the intention of this work is not to take a series of causational ideas and connect them to a concluding effect that would seem empirical or scientifically reproducible. Rather the intent is it to offer a web of connected ideas and thoughts, nest them within and constrain them without each other, folding and enfolding on
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them in recursive ways such that each reader who engages with them will both become part of the ideas and contribute to them. In this sense this chapter might serve well as a marker of emergences for those that have contributed to the work thus far, but keeping the door open for further emergent understandings. To this end, we offer not a conclusion but a recursive repositioning of the authors, mirroring our initial positions and where we find ourselves now in our evolution of thinking, a discussion of but one of the emergent realizations that has evolved from the work, and an invitation to each of you who chooses to engage with our work to join the collective thinking here.

Recursive Repositioning Nurturing, Jennifer At the end of Chapter 2, I described the fallibility of teachers, our willingness and persistence to nurture differently, and the opportunities teachers have to impact students lives in meaningful ways. Reflecting on the need for nurture within education, I am mindful and cognizant of the urgings from Dwyer and Craig to include more examples from my personal practice (thanks for your kind words of encouragement). It also seems natural that, in June, I would draw upon my year of engagement with students in the classroom. As I offer the following personal narrative, I am conscious of my imperfections on my journey of continuous professional growth and thankful for the privilege to work in the field of education. On the first day of school, I had the students draw themselves. No instruction, no limits, just how they saw themselves now. This seemed to make many of the students very happy, art on the first day of school and something as free and simple as drawing themselves. They proceeded to draw, colour and visit at their tables.

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After, I had them come together at the carpet. I told them about the lesson my grade six teacher had given my class on how to draw a face. It had been the only lesson on face proportionality I had ever had, but it had stuck with me throughout my lifetime. Now I wanted to share it with them. I gave them each a handheld mirror and a new piece of clean white paper. Over the next hour or so, I took them through the same step-by-step lesson just as I had remembered it from over twenty years ago. Some students struggled with the idea of their eyes being located on the midline of their faces (I remembered this struggle too). Others wanted help drawing their ears, or noses, or eyebrows. When they were finished, I had them choose coloured poster paper to mount the two pictures beside each other with their names. We displayed these on the wall inside our classroom as they finished. I later drew their attention to the wall of portraits and explained my intentions of the lesson. The initial portraits and the self-portrait lesson were acting as visual metaphor for my role as their teacher for the year. Both pictures represented them, but the second one was influenced by my instruction. They attended to details differently, measured, revised, and looked at themselves more closely. This began our inquiry, how do I shape my identity and how does my identity shape me? Throughout the year, the students changed out the wall with different representations of themselves. We did large silhouettes with personal collages, flags and mottos, followed by a Who am I, with mini silhouettes on hand-made snowflakes and descriptive paragraphs as clues. Later, I gave them a lesson of light and shadow and the students painted themselves on large canvases, choosing unnatural colours for their skintones and hair to emphasize the contrasts. Next, we used graphic images and coloured pencil crayons to create varied repeated images, inspired by the work of Andy Warhol. For their last two assignments, I gave them each two pieces of paper, one to create a piece of art that represented them in some way and the second to draw a new self portrait as they see themselves now.
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The students set to work following their own sparks, ideas and interests. For the representational art, they drew images of their dogs, lizards, hobbies, video games, and more. Some painted while others chose to leave their image in pencil. Interestingly, one student who had spent most of the year telling me that art really isnt his thing was the first one to begin his realistic self-portrait. He drew in pencil, painted with watercolours and his overall work was amazing. We matted the portraits as they finished and I encouraged them to write personal messages to each other that they could take with them at the end of the year; these were to be specific to the person, things they appreciated or admired about each other. These final portraits were crafted with burgeoning confidence, individuality and an eye inward. The students captured aspects and idiosyncrasies of themselves that were beyond any lesson I had given them. It may sound as though we just did art all year, but the art was supplemental and tangential to the other dynamic studies of Canadian history and identity, collaborative mathematics, literature circles, and scientific inquiries that filled our days. Through the recursive elaborations of self-portraits, the students reflected their ever-changing identities. The shared experiences gave us a sense of unity. We all are unique, with our own things that we are each working on. The art was representative of our journey, the growth, the change, the relationships and the learning that have been nurtured in our classroom. Recently, the educational assistant in our room offered to photograph the portraits before the students could take them home. I pulled out the stacks of art from the cabinet drawers, of which there were many. As she began to lay them out on the carpet, the students attention strayed from their work. Some students giggled as they saw their initial drawings, while others murmured about how much better they had gotten at drawing faces.

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For the last few weeks, I had been parading their work around the school like a proud mother duck, showing off their accomplishments at every opportunity. People commented immediately on the quality of the work that the students had created, each one worthy of a frame. Again, I had to re-orient the attention of their eye to the students within the pictures. One set of pictures was of a student that had been in our school for the last five years. I had remembered him from the years previous. He always wore black, sat himself outside the group, sulked in the hallways (very intimidating to younger students), and spent lunch hours inside assisting the caretaker with garbage collection. At the start of the year, he had drawn himself two inches tall in the center of the white expanse, loosely centered on black matting. He had included the intestine detailing on his black hoodie and had shaded out his face completely. I had narrowly saved his second drawing from being torn up, as the lesson on face proportion had discouraged him to the point of anger. I told him that he did not have to display it on the poster (as everyone else was doing), but nor could he destroy it. Reluctantly, he let me take it and the drawing remained in the cabinet all year as a reminder of our first compromise. In the second to last week of school, I took his first portraits out of the cabinet and placed them beside his end of year (self) image. In the new picture, he had filled the page with an image of himself from the shoulders up. His face was roundish, with brown hair, blue eyes, a red sweatshirt, peachy skin and a huge smile with a little star glinting on his teeth. For this self-portrait, he had chosen red matting which was now filling up with messages from his peers, you are good at drawing; you know a lot about reptiles; I enjoyed playing on the soccer team with you this year [at lunch]; you are funny; thanks for letting me hold Lidia when it was your week for pet care; you are good friend. This is the image I would like to leave with you, with the promise of nurture.

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Collective, Craig There was a moment in writing my zuihitsu, amidst my wanderings, that I found myself contemplating the value of the language of complexity. I wondered if the language of complexity, students as nodes and classrooms as networks, was dehumanizing. Some have expressed a comfort with the language, which I understand. Yet for me, it still lacks a very human component. I wondered if these metaphors of complexity would prevent me from making meaningful personal relationships. Were they isolating in some way? I did not return to that thread in as much detail as I should have. I wandered around it, but I never tackled the question of interpersonal relationships in sufficient detail. Yet, relationships are essential to wandering. I can wander with my son, with my wife, or with my close friends (as I have done over the course of this project with two people whom I view as true friends), but wandering with unknown people is still a discomforting thought for me. I still require a safe space. Luckily, Markides (2013) picked up a thread this thread and tangled it for me. Nurturing is an essential aspect of the collective. We nurture our learners to learn, and we are in turn nurtured by them. I have always felt that I am more of a learner than a teacher, but now I have a better understanding of what that means. Craig (2013) suggested flowing elements of improvising, conducting, and critiquing. These, in my mind, are not possible without a sense of nurturing, and without the safe space and deeply caring relationships. Being aware of collectives is all for naught if we dont have a sense of trust and love as individuals. Does the artistry that I crave in the teaching profession, the openness to travel down unexplored paths as a member of the learning collective, arise from the simple idea that I am nurtured by my students? Or, does that artistry arise from my nurturing of my students? Or is it both? What are the ethical implications of nurturing collective artistry?

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Where does love (of my students, from my students, and with the objects of our study) figure into this tangled web? A lot to think about.

Artistry, Mike Coming into the project, I felt that I had a strong grounding in both complexity theory, collectives and in particular the arts, thanks to my personal history, my experiences in the classroom, and my years of study on these topics. As I wrote, I found myself gathering thoughts and collecting ideas that I have had the opportunity to explore through my masters course work and conversations with peers over the last two years. Through the engagement with my colleagues, however, two very key understandings emerged. I cannot say that either idea was completely new to me, yet it had remained unwritten, or rather unconscious, until the work of Dwyer and Markides threw a light on it.. In the sensibility of the consciousness of the collective (Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler, 2008), my own attention was put on these two understandings which in turn has helped them to rise to the surface and interact with my own notions of nurturing collective artistry. The first came from Markides notions of relationship. Complex systems for me have always shared a strong connection to networked systems, both in their theories and as metaphors. Yet, even though I recognize the importance of the connections between agents in the system, the strong and weak links, that allow for the emergence of hubs, outliers and the network itself, I had not to this point spent much time considering how those connections, those relationships, came to be and developed over time. I took them for given as an aspect of the system. Markides notion of nurture has opened up new dialogues around the development of the connections and is raising areas for exploration

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as to the extent to which the relationships within a systems are both intentional and emergent. Likewise, Dwyer (2013) has illuminated, both explicitly through his exploration of zuihitsu and implicitly through his crafting of work, an art form that remained unexplored in my own explorations of artistic complexity -- the art of writing. Poetry, fiction, story, narrative, and even APA formatted research writing, would seem to hold great promise for both exploration for its connections to complex systems thinking and models for occasioning emergence in the complex mathematics classroom. And yet, while I was privy to this art form, as both audience and participant through this collective project, consideration of it remained off to the side in my consciousness until my attentions was subtly directed towards it. Where I find myself now is not at the end of the exploration, as I thought I might be, but rather standing at a point in the road where the path behind me seems so much shorter than the journey ahead. And this fills me with wonder.

Emergent Listening On reading and re-reading our own work, we are all struck by an emergent theme that lies through all three ideas; listening. It is an essential ingredient in nurturing, understanding and caring for our students within the context of the learning community. Listening to collectives, to the ebbs and flows of the emergent understanding in the moment, is a key condition of occasioning emergent learning. In terms of artistry, listening is entwined with improvisation, which is a necessity for conducting, and is enfolded in the critique or Craigs (2013) model. We are left with a thought about complex (mathematical) learning systems; what does it mean to listen? What does listening to a complex system entail?

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Davis (1997) offers a glimpse inside this question with his concept of hermeneutic listening. This type of listening is defined by seeking variation and participating in the meaning making of a classroom collective. Members of the collective and the teacher are jointly exploring a (math) concept and co-developing new ways of seeing and being with the ideas. This is distinct from his other layers of listening; evaluative listening is about correcting what is right and wrong, and interpretive listening is listening for the reasons behind the conceptualization, making a judgement about its embodied meanings, and correcting the heading to the desired outcome. Looking at these three layers of listening, we see a correlation between the open way of being, which we postulate as one possible answer to the question of M4T, and the openness with hermeneutic listening. Not simply listening to the outcomes we are looking for; that would be searching rather than listening. Instead, we view listening as having an openness with several layers occurring simultaneously, nested within each other. Listening to nurture our students as individuals, listening to the collective as a learning system, and listening with an ear for artistry. Our answer to the question of M4T was Nurturing Collective Artistry. Maybe we can practice some hermeneutic listening from those three different perspectives, by changing the focus of perception. The phrase itself can be played with and looked at from different angles. Favoring one of these perspectives as dominant over the others may not occasion a space that allows for the true richness and diversity to emerge. More likely, we are looking at a dynamic interplay of all three.

Nurturing Collective Artistry Nurture is central to establishing relationships of trust and mutual respect. These are the basis for establishing a classroom culture of care and collectivity. Similar to the conductor of an orchestra or the director of a play (Craig, 2013), the teachers role in the
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classroom is that of consciousness of the collective (Davis, Sumara, and Luce-Kapler, 2008). Listening and responding to the needs of the students is key to nurturing. The teacher listens to students to varying degrees, superficially to deeply. It is how the teacher listens, interprets and responds that impacts the students sense of nurture. Teachers from elementary to high school listen for evidence of the students understandings, misconceptions, and struggles. Sometimes patterns emerge that inform practice, affecting the collective; other times, the teacher is able to make a difference with just one individual. The merits of listening span both collective and individual interests. In Montessori education, the teacher is expected to set aside and prioritize time in the week to observe the students engagements during the work period. The purposeful and sustained observation time is significant in re-orienting the teachers attention to the students engagement in the context of the rich learning environment. Observation is a multi-sensory way of listening. For the teacher, listening enables interpretation and thought, allowing for pause and action. Nurturing collective artistry embodies observation, interpretation and interaction, between teacher and student(s).

Nurturing Collective Artistry In this frame of references, it would suggest that a systems view of a learning collective, and an awareness of being embedded in that system, provide simultaneous insights into the parts and the whole. Listening in this perspective would then require the teacher to be aware of what the individuals are saying, but also what the group is saying. What are the emergent ideas that the collective is expressing? Meadows (2002) provides a useful example with the metaphor of dancing with systems. In terms of listening, it requires a teacher to not just to listen to the individuals,

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but to listen the collective. Meadows reminds us to spend part of your time from a vantage point that lets you see the whole system (p. 5). Listening requires us to get the beat of the system (Meadows, p. 3), to have a sense for the direction and diversity of the ideas being expressed. None of this is possible without having a sense of beat. Each learning system has a movement and a feel of its own that gives it its own unique sense of being. As teachers we can begin to understand that uniqueness when we admit that we are a part of it, and resolve to listen to the beat. Starting with the behavior of the system directs one's thoughts to dynamic, not static analysis (p. 4), and it is this listening to the systems behavior that occasions a space for teachers to begin to hear the beat of the learning collective in which they are embedded. Listening then is being with others, connecting with them, connecting them to each other, and growing with them. Not just people, but ideas, subjects, and concepts. There is a collective sense of purpose. When we suggest listening to the collective, this is not just a call to listen to the words the individuals are saying. Rather, it invites us into the realm of collective emotion, mythology, story, and embodied history. Once we are able to get that collective sense, we can begin to orient attention in the direction of expanding the space of the possible. Davis et al. (2008) refers to this as consciousness of the collective. Listening and mindful attention on the macro-level collective system would allow teachers to allow for emergent pathways to be explored.

Nurturing Collective Artistry Listening in nurturing collecting artistry has a character that, rather than being passive, is active, purposeful, deliberate and intentional. As suggested by James (2009), listening needs to be about being fully accepting what is being offered to the collective, enabling the collective to move forward, being changed by what is being said and done, and co-creating together. Listening is about paying attention to not only the words but the
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actions and even silences of the collective, accepting and interpreting them, and moving the artistic act forward. Listening is the part of the nurture that is offered to the collective and a key element in the act of artistic creation. What constitutes the artistic collective here however can be considered on nested levels. On the level of the individual, it is listening and being aware of self, history, intuitions, and bias and accepting all of these for their contribution to the act of creation without allowing any to block that act. On the level of a collective of artists working together, listening is nurturing part of the act of creation, in the way that a group of musicians or actors work together to produce a single work. If we consider the collective to be the art itself, listening is about nurturing a relationship between the art and the audience, allowing the message of the art to be heard and connecting with that message in a way that enriches the art further. And if we consider the art to be the nurturing connection between artist and audience, then listening may embedded within the art in such as way that the audience becomes part of the collective with the artists in the further creation of the art. Implications for M4T when we look at nurturing collective artistry then is in how we nurture relationships and connections through the models of listening and improvisation within the complex mathematics classroom collective, at each and all of these levels. And if we are successful, we may just be able to engender an open way of being with the artistic disciplines of mathematics and a nurturing quality to the relationships between agents within this collective of artists.

An Invitation for Engagement We want to play with these ideas and see what emerges. This is not a conclusion, nor it is an end. It is only the end of the beginning. Where it goes from here, we do not know, but we are excited by what may emerge from our engagement and from the
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engagement of others. It is through others that true diversity of interpretations and new ideas may arise. All we can do now is sit back and let our ideas out into the wild and see what happens.

Were listening.

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Davis, B. & Sumara, D. (2010). If things were simple..: Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice (16) 4, 856-860. Davis, B. (2008). Is 1 a prime number?: Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School (14)2, 86-92. Einstein, A. (date unknown), Quotation by Albert Einstein, Available at: http:// www.quotationspage.com/quote/40486.html. Accessed: April 14, 2013. Ghandi, M. K. (1913). The Collected Works of M. K. Gandhi, VOL 13, Ch 153, General Knowledge About Health. New Delhi, India:The Publications Division. Ma, L. (1999). Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics: Teachers understanding of fundamental mathematics in China and the United States. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Renert, M., & Davis, B. (2010). An open way of being: Integral Reconceptualization of Mathematics for Teaching. In Esbjorn-Hargens, S., Reams, J., & Gunnlauson, O. (Eds.) Integral education: New directions for higher learning. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Shulman, L.S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.

Chapter Two
Aoki, T. T. (2005). Curriculum in a new key. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Azzouni, J. (2006). How and why mathematics is unique as a social practice. In R. Hersh (Ed.), 18 Unconventional essays on the nature of mathematics (pp. 201-219). New York: Springer. Bibby, T. (2010). What does it mean to characterize mathematics as Masculine? Bringing a psychoanalytic lens to bear on teaching and learning of mathematics. In M.

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Walshaw (Ed.), Unpacking pedagogy: New perspectives for mathematics classrooms. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Brendtro, L., Brokenleg, M., & Van Bockern, S. (1990). Reclaiming youth at risk: Our hope for the future. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times. New York: Routledge. de Freitas, E. (2008). Mathematics and its other: (dis)locating the feminine. Gender and Education, 20(3), 281-290. Montessori, Maria. From Childhood to Adolescence. 1948. Trans. A.M. Joosten. Rev. ed. New York: Schocken, 1976. Nurture. 2013. In Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved April 16, 2013, from http:// www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nurture Nature versus nurture. (2013, April 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:20, April 20, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Nature_versus_nurture&oldid=550337799 Noddings, N. (2005). Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (Ed.) New York: Teachers College Press. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Shulman, L.S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. Sidorkin, A. (1999) Beyond discourse: Education, the self and dialogue. Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press.
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van Manen, M. (1982). Phenomenological pedagogy. Curriculum Inquiry, 12(3), 283299. Response References Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times. New York: Routledge. Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House. Markides, J. (2013). The need for nurture within education. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary. Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Noddings, N. (2005). Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (Ed.) New York: Teachers College Press. Riedelsheimer, T. (2001). Andy Goldsworthys Rivers and Tides [DVD]. New Video Group. Sidorkin, A. (1999) Beyond discourse: Education, the self and dialogue. Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press.

Chapter Three
Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A necessary unity. New York: Dutton. Capra, F. (2002). The hidden connections: Integrating the biological, cognitive, and social dimensions of life into a science of sustainability. New York: Doubleday. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row. Davis, B., Sumara, D., and Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging Minds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Davis, B. (2005). Teacher as Consciousness of the Collective. Complicity: Journal of Complexity and Education. 2-1, p. 85.88
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Davis, B. (2004). Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum Associates. Doll, W. (2005). Chaos, Complexity, Curriculum and Culture: A Conversation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Emergence. (2012, April 12). In Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved July 23, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Definitions Fosnot, C. T., & Dolk, M. L. A. M. (2001). Young mathematicians at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Haven, Kendall (2007). Story Proof: The startling power behind the science of stories. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. Hersh, R. (January 01, 1995). Fresh Breezes in the Philosophy of Mathematics. The American Mathematical Monthly : the Official Journal of the Mathematical Association of America, 102, 7, 589. Irie-Sugimoto, N., Kobayashi, T., Sato, T., & Hasegawa, T. (January 01, 2009). Relative quantity judgment by Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Animal Cognition, 12, 1, 193-9. James, Michelle (2008 December). Improv Theatre and Complex Adaptive Systems (Blog Post). Retrieved from: http://creativeemergence.typepad.com/the_fertile_unknown/ 2009/12/improv-theater-and-complex-adaptive-systems.html Johnson, S. (2001). Emergence: The connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. New York: Scribner. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Nez, R. E. (2000). Where mathematics comes from: How the embodied mind brings mathematics into being. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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Mason, M. (2008). Complexity theory and the philosophy of education. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell. Maturana, H. R. and Varela, F. J. (1992). Tree of Knowledge. Boston: Shambhala. McKenzie, K. (2011). Lost and Found: A Guide to Purposeful Wandering. Bellingham: FNO Press. Meadows, D. H., & Wright, D. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub. Mowat,E, & Davis, B. (2010.). Interpreting Embodied Mathematics Using Network Theory: Implications for Mathematics Education. The University of Alberta. Renert, M. & Davis, B. (2013). The Math Teachers Know. Manuscript in preparation Renert, M., & Davis, B. (2010). An open way of being: Integral Reconceptualization of Mathematics for Teaching. In Esbjorn-Hargens, S., Reams, J., & Gunnlauson, O. (Eds.) Integral education: New directions for higher learning. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Richie, Donald. (2007). A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press. Sawyer, R. K. (2011). Structure and improvisation in creative teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thoreau, H. D. (2008). Walking. United States: Akasha Publishing. Walter, G., & Marks, S. (1981). Experiential learning and change. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Yu, Jie (2009). A Zen journey in the living map of curriculum. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry (6)2 http://nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs/index.php/tci <Access Date: November, 2012>

Response References
Dwyer, C. (2013). wandering through collective spaces. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary.
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Richie, D. (2007). A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press.

Chapter Four
Ball, D.L., Lubienski, S., & Mewborn, D. (2001). Research on teaching mathematics: The unsolved problem of teachers mathematical knowledge. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed.). New York: Macmillan. Bellinger M. F. (1927) Commedia DellArte. In A Short History of the Drama. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. pp. 153-7. Briggs, J., & Peat, F.D. (1990). Turbulent mirror. Harper & Row. Buonarroti, M. (date unknown), Quotation by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Available at: http:// www.goodreads.com/quotes/115896-i-saw-the-angel-in-the-marble-and-carveduntil. Accessed: April 14, 2013. Capra, F. (1996). The web of life. New York: Doubleday Craig, M. (2011). Of billiard balls and quantum entanglement: An art to mathematics assessment. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary. Davis, B. (2008). Complexity and education: vital simultaneities. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(1), 46-61. Davis, B. & Simmt, E. (2003). Understanding learning systems: Mathematics education and complexity science. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (34)2, 137-167. Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: changing teaching in complex times. New York: Routledge. Eisner, E.W. (1976). Educational Connoisseurship and Criticism: Their Form and Functions in Education Evaluation. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 10 (3/4), 135 150. Eisner, E. W. (1998) The enlightened eye: qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of
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educational practice. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill, 1998. Eisner, E. W. (2002) The educational imagination: on the design and evaluation of school programs. (3rd Ed.) Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Eisner, Elliot W. (2002) 'What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education?', the encyclopedia of informal education, retrieved May 20, 2012 from: www.infed.org/biblio/eisner_arts_ and_the_practice_or_education.htm. Emergence. (2012, April 12). In Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved July 23, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Definitions Feedback. (2011, July 19). In Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. Retrieved July 23, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback_loop#Types_of_feedback Feldman, E. (1981). Varieties of Visual Experience (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harry N Abrams, Inc.. Holling, C.S. (2001) Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems. Ecosystems (4), 390-405. James, M. (2009, December 14). Improv theatre and complex adaptive systems. Retrieved April 14, 2012 from http://creativeemergence.typepad.com/the_fertile_unknown/ 2009/12/improv-theater-and-complex-adaptive-systems.html Johnson, S. (2001). Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Kane, B. J. (2004). The case for improvisational melodic structures. Cambridge, MA: Jazz Path Publishing. Koetting, J. R. (1988). Educational connoisseurship and educational criticism: Pushing beyond information and effectiveness. Fifth Annual Open Forum: The Foundational Issues of the Field (pp. 442-457). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. New Orleans, LA. LEngle, M. (1962). A Wrinkle in Time. New York, NY: Dell Publishing Co., Inc..
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Meagher, J. (2007). "Commedia dell'arte ". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from http:// www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/comm/hd_comm.htm Olmos, A et al., (2009). 'Exploring the Role of Latency and Orchestra Placement on the Networked Performance of a Distributed Opera'. 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence, Los Angeles. Retrieved April 15, 2012 from http:// astro.temple.edu/ ~tuc16417/papers/Olmos_et_al.pdf Renert, M., & Davis, B. (2010). An open way of being: Integral Reconceptualization of Mathematics for Teaching. In Esbjorn-Hargens, S., Reams, J., & Gunnlauson, O. (Eds.) Integral education: New directions for higher learning. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Rosenberg, M. E. (2010). Jazz and Emergence (Part One). Inflexions (4), pp. 183-277. Rosenfeld, J. (2001). Lead Softly, but Carry a Big Baton. Fast Company, retrieved April 15, 2012 from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/48/baton.html. Sfard, A. (1998). Two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing one. Educational Researchers, 27 (2), 413. Steffe, L. P. & Kieren, T. E. (1994). Radical constructivism and mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 25, 711-733. Stuart, F. I. and Tax, S., (2004), Toward an Integrative Approach to Designing Service Experiences: Lessons Learned from the Theatre, Journal of Operations Management, 6 (22), 609-627. Watson, A. (2000). Mathematics teachers acting as informal assessors: Practices, problems and recommendations. Educational Studies in Mathematics (41)1, 69-91.

Response References
Craig, M. (2013). Improvise, conduct, and critique: Conditioning emergence in the mathematics classroom. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary.
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Davis, B., Sumara, D., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times. New York: Routledge. Formative. (2013, June 20). In Wiktionary: The free dictionary. Retrieved June 23, 2013 from http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=formative&oldid=21270439. Trans-. (2013, June 18). In Wiktionary: The free dictionary. Retrieved June 23, 2013 from http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=trans-&oldid=21145974.

Chapter Five
Craig, M. (2013). Improvise, conduct, and critique: Conditioning emergence in the mathematics classroom. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary. Davis, B. (1997) Listening for Differences: An Evolving Conception of Mathematics Teaching. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28 (3), p355-376 Davis, B., Sumara, D., and Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging Minds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dwyer, C. (2013). wandering through collective spaces. Unpublished paper, University of Calgary. James, M. (2009, December 14). Improv theatre and complex adaptive systems. Retrieved April 14, 2012 from http://creativeemergence.typepad.com/the_fertile_unknown/ 2009/12/improv-theater-and-complex-adaptive-systems.html Meadows, D. (2002). Dancing with Systems. The Systems Thinker, (13)2, p. 2-6

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