The Role of Ethnomathematics in Mathematics Education Cases From

Analyses ZDM 99/3 The Role of Ethnomathematics in or identifiable groups of people, especially in the South Mathematics Education hemisphere. Musse Ismail Galaal3, in order to introduce Cases from the Horn of Africa12 his work on Somali traditional weather expertise and traditional astrology, wrote in 1970: “In trying to set down what I have learned of Somali weather lore I have be- Jama Musse Jama, Pisa (Italy) come aware of many difficulties, and the complexity and uniqueness of the subject is one of them. But more than this, the fact that the beliefs and practices are unwritten, Abstract: The aim of this paper is to highlight the role that eth- and handed down from generation to generation of scat- nomathematics may have in the mathematical curriculum in the tered group of nomads, and differ somewhat with each Horn of Africa. It is also a first attempt to document some social group in the oral exposition of them, makes it extremely practices and native procedures that people living in this region difficult to offer a comprehensive and consistent statement use to manage their “daily mathematical problems”. Examples of what is generally held. It is moreover no easy task to fromthelocalculture,whichcouldbeusedtointroducemath- explain this unwritten ‘Bush Science’ in a manner ac- ematical arguments in the classroom, are described. The paper finally deals with the possible ways these cultural events may be ceptable both to the culture one writes about and to the included in the mathematical syllabi, such as coining new mathe- modern reader with quite different cultural ideas, and a matics terms in the local languages, or as preparing mathematics quite different scientific outlook” (Galaal 1970). textbooks and classroom activities. All the difficulties mentioned in these excerpts apply to- day to ethnomathematics and its use in the Horn of Africa Kurzreferat: Die Rolle der Ethnomathematik im Mathematikun- terricht. Beispiele vom Horn von Afrika. In diesem Beitrag wird schools’ syllabi. They represent the main obstacle to the die Rolle, die Ethnomathematik im Mathematikunterricht am first steps towards mathematical curricula for the schools, Horn von Afrika spielen könnte, beleuchtet. Außerdem wird which should embody, or at least take care of, issues from ein erster Versuch unternommen, einige der sozialen Praktiken the local culture and daily practices. und nativen Methoden zu dokumentieren, die die Einheimi- Moreover, the East African region, especially the So- schen dieser Region zur Bewältigung ihrer “mathematischen All- mali inhabited area, has been suffering political and social tagsprobleme” benutzen. Beispiele der lokalen Kultur, die bei instability for the last two decades; this not only further der Einführung mathematischer Argumente im Unterricht ver- degraded the school system and its value, but also acceler- wendet werden könnten, werden beschrieben. Schließlich wer- ated the disappearance of this unwritten “Bush Science”. den mögliche Wege aufgezeigt, wie solche kulturellen Eigen- heiten in Mathematiklehrpläne integriert werden können, z. B. Bearing in mind the previous Galaal’s statement, this durch Einführung neuer mathematischer Begriffe mit Hilfe der paper aims at: regionalen Sprachen, oder durch Entwicklung entsprechender – making an attempt to document social practices and na- Mathematikschulbücher und Unterrichtsaktivitäten. tive procedures that people in the region use to manage their “daily mathematical problems”; ZDM-Classification: C60, D30 – suggesting the schools mathematics curricula curators 1. Introduction to include these cultural events in the mathematical syl- Twenty years ago it was argued that “The cultural place- labi, in other words to “think ethnomathematically”. ment of an educational system and of scientific structures Some examples from the Somali culture (Jama Musse/ is, probably, the most relevant fact in modern develop- Favilli (to appear)), which can be used to introduce math- ment of education, mainly in ‘undeveloped’ countries” ematical arguments in the classroom, are presented. Some (D’Ambrosio 1979). As for mathematics is concerned, in of these “cultural” examples are compared with the “alien” the last two decades many researchers have agreed that ones used in the current Somali mathematics school text- teaching must be related to its cultural and geographical books. context. The rise of ethnomathematics, an emerging field of mathematics and a strong mean of mathematical ed- 2. Traditional culture and science ucation, must be considered as a good response to the Although in the recent years many social professionals and educational researchers have become aware of the problems regarding the cultural component of education. so-called indigenous knowledge, many groups of people On the other hand, the explosive way of communica- tion media and information technology (Internet, satellites continue failing to include their own knowledge in their etc.) have created further cultural dependency to the North development issues. This fact not only creates further dif- hemisphere. This dependency is the major cause of the ficulties in the progress of these groups, but also promotes the disappearance of their histories and of last traces of disappearance of traditional knowledge of many societies their cultural heritage. 1 In the Horn of Africa, especially in the Somali inhabited A presentation to the First International Conference on Ethno- area, very little is known about local traditional knowl- mathematics, University of Granada, Spain, September 2–5, 1998 edge. The main reason is due to the Somalis nomadic 2The Horn of Africa area I am interested in covers the late Re- 3Musse X. Ismail Galaal was the most prominent Somali educa- public of Somalia (funded in 1960, and resulted from a merger tor who dealt with Somali traditional aspects in astronomy. His between British Somaliland Protectorate and Italian Trust Ter- interest in the relationship between poetry and the traditional ritory of Somalia), The Republic of Djibouti (ex-French So- lore concerning weather and the movements of the celestial maliland), as well as some regions of Ethiopia and Kenya of bodies led him to discover important issues on Somali indige- Somali origins nous knowledge (Galaal 1968, Galaal 1970). 92 ZDM 99/3 Analyses life; thus, Somali culture has only been orally transmitted the end of each school year. A student had to undertake throughout the centuries, with no written records of their a two years national service (military duties). The for- history. The Somali became a written language in 1972 mation of schoolteachers was taken at Lafole National only. Teacher Training Centre (later it became the Lafole Col- However some remarks on traditional knowledge in the lege of Education after it joined the National University Horn of Africa were reported in several fields of science; in 1972). Throughout the period 1963–1972 all teacher- for instance in astronomy, medicine, animal husbandry and training facilities were being centralised at Lafole Centre, in agriculture (see for example Galaal 1968, Galaal 1970, and primary teacher training programmes at Hargeisa and Ali 1983, Puffer 1997). Some of these development at- Amoud were phased out. tempts have survived the domination of Western science, which prevented this indigenous knowledge from progress, 4. Problems regarding mathematical education in So- accumulation and growth. malia (before the war) As far as mathematics is concerned, examples specif- As the secondary school curriculum has never been re- ically related to the Somali traditional life are shown viewed, most of Somali students followed a program com- in Jama Musse/Favilli (to appear). These examples are pletely outdated. Moreover, the overloaded program in the also classified according to the fundamental activities school curriculum caused the textbooks to contain exces- which are necessary and sufficient to develop mathemat- sive mathematical syllabi, which were appropriate neither ical knowledge: counting, locating, measuring, designing, to the students’ level of attainment nor to the teachers’ playing and explaining (Bishop 1988). ability to handle them. This paper attempts to contribute to the revival and de- The total absence of review to the initial attempt of velopment of this cultural heritage and to its full incorpo- drafting maths textbooks, the poor preparation of the ration into the school syllabi. school teachers, and the shortage of the Somali mathematical terminology resulted in a decrease of educational quality in the secondary schools. This fact also increased 3. Background of Somali schools (before the war) the gap on mathematical knowledge between the school Until recently the Somali educational system was totally and the university. A specific difficulty in geometry for centralised and the schools were run by the State. Ac- Somali students attending the university was observed cording to the Somali Educational Code, enacted on July (Favilli/Jama Musse 1996b). 31, 1972, the school system was subdivided as follows: Another matter which caused a serious problem for stu- primary school (elementary and intermediate school, four dents was the Italian language, imposed as the instruction years each); secondary school (four years); university and language at the Somali National University. The Italian higher education institutions (four years). Primary school language was not learned in the secondary schools. In- education was compulsory. There were also vocational tensive pre-university

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