and ‘formal’ ways in educational contexts (Hughes, 1986). If we are unable to
achieve this there will be a discontinuity between their early learning at home and
that of the Early Years setting: the implications for the children’s beliefs about them-
selves as learners and about the nature of learning mathematics are enormous.Creativity in Mathematics
The work of researchers such as Craft (2002) explores the role of creativity in the Early
Years, whilst Csikszentmihalyi (1997) and others have investigated the creative process:
creativity is seen as worthwhile and as having a role in learning and development.
The Foundation Stage curriculum emphasises that creativity ‘begins with curiosity
and involves children in exploration and experimentation ... they draw upon their
imagination and originality. They make decisions, take risks and play with ideas ...
If they are to be truly creative, children need the freedom to develop their ideas and
the support of adults’ (QCA, 2000, p. 118). Creativityis presented almost as a ‘subject’
and generally relating to the arts such as dance, music, drawing, painting and stories:
though the same document informs practitioners that ‘young children’s learning is
not compartmentalised’ (QCA, 2000, p. 45).A study of teachers’ perspectives of creativity in mathematics
In a recent study of teachers’ perspectives of creativity within mathematics (Carruthers
and Worthington, 2005b), we invited teachers to provide specific examples of some-
thing they had seen a child do that was creative in mathematics. The majority (almost
80 per cent) gave non-specific examples that they felt supported ‘creative’ mathemat-
ics, including role play, patterns, construction, shape, art, songs and rhymes and sand.
Examples cited suggest that teachers tend to see creativity in mathematics as con-
cerned with specific resourcesor activities, rather than processes. Only one teacher out
of 231 responded with an explicit example of a child engaged in this way, suggesting
that teachers fail to ‘see’ mathematics when observing children.
Mathematics through self-initiated play, talk and thinking were cited as creative
by only 9 per cent of teachers, and only 5 per cent of teachers cited children’s
mathematical mark-making as creative.Summary
We have shown how young children struggle to make their own meanings in many
different ways. We argue that emergent mathematics generates success through
social interactions and the contexts in which they take place. In respect of creativity
in mathematics, our findings suggest a narrow perspective of children as learners is
likely to severely limit creativity in mathematics and may lead to low levels of cog-
nitive challenge for young learners in respect of talk, thinking and particularly of
modes of representation: similar concerns about levels of cognitive challenge in
mathematics were also raised in another recent study by researchers Adams et al.,34 Children’s Mathematics8657part 1b.qxd 04/07/2006 18:06 Page 34