Page 421 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

396 B.C. Luitel and P.C. Taylor

Water and soil
Creation of mud
A sculptor muses

Indeed, the exclusive view of globalisation can help us or our teachers realise
the disempowering limitations of a hegemonic worldview. On the other hand,
extreme advocacy of localisation cannot empower our teachers to apply multiple
referents to their pedagogical creativity. However, dialectical logic embedded in
glocalisation can help us create synergistic spaces of interdependent, reflexive and
co-arising relationships between global and local processes (Kloos 2000).
Precisely speaking, such spaces help us realise how objectivity and subjectivity,
global and local, transcendental and cultural, universal and contextual, and western
and non-western exist side-by-side (Robertson 1995). Therefore, in designing a
teacher education program, the synergistic hybrid of glocalisation can offer us
a basis for: (a) incorporating knowledge systems arising from local cultural prac-
tices; (b) linking with knowledge systems arising from multiple worldviews; and
(c) conceiving meaningful pedagogies of mathematics for diverse cultural contexts
(Globalism Institute 2003).
Finally, glocalisation is an expression that can promote a positive image of
globalisation as dialogic relationships between different cultures and worldviews,
thereby paving the way for transforming mathematics teacher education from hege-
monic legacies to an egalitarian and liberating enterprise. I envisage that such an
empowering image of globalisation will be helpful for morphing the hegemonic
legacy of monological pedagogies into change-oriented participatory pedagogies.
By employing such pedagogies, Nepali mathematics teachers are likely to:
(a) encourage students to search for different forms of mathematics (e.g., ethnic
number systems, different basket patterns, multiple mythological symbolisms) for
present and future uses; (b) help students explore local classifications/categories of
mathematical knowledge (e.g., sets of objects in a traditional Nepali kitchen, alge-
braic patterns in traditional potato farming method) and their interactivity with
official mathematical categories; and (c) develop emergent pedagogies that pro-
mote interactivity between different mathematical knowledge systems.
Dear Dr. Director, I hope that you have now started thinking about incorpo-
rating some of the ideas I have suggested in this letter. Perhaps, my discussion
of two narrow views of globalisation has helped us think more creatively about
embracing an empowering image of globalisation as conversation. I hold the
view that changing ourselves from comprador intelligentsias to transformative
agents makes it possible to incorporate synergistic visions in our teacher educa-
tion program, thereby liberating our mathematics teacher education from disem-
powering single-minded perspectives. Hoping to hear your comments in the
near future,
Sincerely yours
Bal Chandra
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