How the Theme of ‘Doing and Undoing’ Applied to the Action of Exchange Reveals Overlooked Core Ideas in School Mathematics

Abstract

The theme of ‘undoing a doing’ is applied to the ubiquitous action of exchange, showing how exchange pervades a school’s mathematics curriculum. It is possible that many obstacles encountered in school mathematics arise from an impoverished sense of exchange, for learners and possibly for teachers. The approach is phenomenological, in that the reader is urged to undertake the tasks themselves, so that the pedagogical and mathematical comments, and elaborations, may connect directly to immediate experience.

Keywords

• doing and undoing
• exchange
• substitution