Journal of Scholastic Inquiry: Education
Volume 9, Page 62
(Mrs. Robles, Interview 2, Jan. 13, 2017) A fourth participant, Mr. Sandoval recalled the many instances as a child in Mexico joining his father to survey the length of many rooftops in centimeters, estimate the number of bags of tiles, and calculate the number of labor hours by number of workers based on the size of the rooftop. Mr. Sandoval talked at length about the way his father used informal talk to apply mathematical principles such as multiplication and division to the task of installing or repairing the roof tile. In Mr. Sandoval’s opinion, his father’s comfort with talking about mathematics affected his attitude (and thinking) toward embracing the role of mathematics within a meaningful learning context. (Mr. Sandoval, Interview 4, March 16, 2017) The above interactions with the Mexican parents provided me a contextual basis i.e., cultural, daily life experiences that framed the parents’ ways of knowing what is mathematics and its role at the family store, in household cooking or maintaining a ranch. From many home visits, I gained immense insight with respect to the familial activities, neighbors and daily events that family members intuitively drew upon to construct mathematical knowledge. In line with the research, there is much importance for educators knowing more of their children’s out-ofschool mathematics learning, more aptly, of other ways of doing mathematics (Abreu & Gorgorio, 2007; Civil & Planas, 2008). Household Practices to Activate Out-of-school Mathematics Knowledge Through informal conversations and firsthand observations, I discovered how each family helped their children acquire a practical knowledge of mathematics, which the parents typically referred to as el aprendizaje de los numeros (which means the learning of numbers). Using the extent of their own learning and comfort with using mathematics, the parents of each household shared unique ways to scaffold their children’s acquisition of mathematics: