There is no formula: Teaching maths for social justice

Abstract

I started reading Paulo Freire as an undergraduate student in Spain in the early nineties. At the time, a combination of Silvio Rodriguez and Rage Against the Machine filled the airwaves and our hearts. We, students of mathematics and physics for the most part, read Freire on Friday evenings and gained a sense of change being possible. Freire made me want to teach, and made me believe that education was the key to the liberation of ‘the oppressed’. At the time, I wasn’t sure who the oppressed were, but I was sure I wasn’t one, and being 19 and a fan of Rage Against the Machine, I became convinced that it was my duty to free them.