Cambiando de roles en la clase de matemáticas: posibilidades desde la educación matemática crítica

Abstract

It is presented a discussion in connection with role changes by the teacher and the students in a mathematics class, based on the possibilities offered by Critical Mathematical Education and the methodological approach of the Critical Investigation. The objective is to show those participant roles in the class change substantially when enabling a scenario to study social situations in the context as the axis of mathematical activity. In this space, the teacher does not have the authority and the only domain over the class but the students become protagonists of it, improving their processes of communication, participation, and consolidation of knowledge inside and outside of mathematics. To generate discussion, it shows the research process carried out by a group of eighth-grade students who present interpretations of an established mathematical model and its relation to self-care: in the use of the motorcycle; the situation of the context that made possible the development of the learning scenario. There, mathematics is built by students from their autonomous, collaborative, and committed work becomes a tool that allows them to take a position in front of the situations that involve them, also, the teacher acts as a counselor. To highlight these new possibilities occurring in the classroom, a characterization of democratic competition is made from two fundamental elements: Mathematical literacy (critical) and Reflective knowing. These theoretical categories can be evidenced into the learning scenario, become constitutive issues that contribute to the citizens' education of students with the fundamental premise of contributing to the consolidation of a more humane, democratic, and just society; from the math class.