from the school rites and rituals dominated by the imperative of turning children
into pupils’ (Anning, 2000, p. 12).
Anning observed that staff in a family day-care centre had changed ‘from a relaxed
attitude to children’s meaning making’ after they had been ‘colonised by educational
beliefs and practices’ (Anning, 2000, p. 12). This had led to an adult-led agenda and a
curriculum which shaped predetermined outcomes for activities. Anning refers to this
as the ‘checklist phenomena’ where staff concerns often focus on teaching children to
write their own names, ‘to know his colours’ and ‘know his numbers and shapes’
(Anning, 2000, p. 13). In such contexts, children are limited to learning what the adult
wants. When the teacher imposes her kind of symbols – including standard symbols –
on the child, the child’s enthusiasm may be dampened and her impulses to explore
creatively or to put thoughts on paper will be suppressed.
Lave and Wenger point out that children learn to do what they think is expected of
them by members of a ‘community of practice’ (1991). Unfortunately when adults set
the agenda for what children learn and how they learn, it follows that children will
stay within the boundaries that teachers have defined. The children may learn to write
their names, but they are also learning that the teacher in fact expects correct spelling,
legibility and neatness; content and meaning are valued less. From this the child also
learns that personal marks and emergent literacies do not belong in this new culture.
In such a learning culture because children have very limited opportunities to
make meaning, they soon learn that mathematics – especially mathematics repre-
sented on paper – does not always make personal sense. In the mathematical culture
of the school an unintended outcome may be that they learn that it does not always
matter if it makes sense. Whereas learning mathematics informally at home was
natural, learning mathematics in the educational context has been transformed into
a ‘subject’ that may not always make sense. Mathematics is now difficult.
Loris Malaguzzi’s poem, paraphrased below, captures these conflicts well:The child has a hundred languages, (and a hundred, hundred, hundred more) ...
But they steal ninety nine, the school and the culture ...
They tell the child to discover the world already there ...
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there. (Malaguzzi, 1996, p. 3)When children make marks and represent their mathematical thinking in a variety
of ways that they have chosen, they are using some of these ‘hundred languages’.Teachers’ beliefs
The four learning theories we have explored in this chapter have also influenced
teachers’ beliefs about if, and how, children can represent mathematics. The educa-
tional theories summarised in Table 2.2 indicate the extent to which educational
theories have influenced teachers’ beliefs; contemporary theory may not yet have
influenced practice in all Early Years settings. Anning emphasises how children
struggle to make sense of the ‘continuities and discontinuities’ of home, pre-school32 Children’s Mathematics8657part 1b.qxd 04/07/2006 18:06 Page 32