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TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE IN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOMS:
AN ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY
Yasmine Abtahi*; Peter Gøtze†, Lisa Steffensen†, Kjellrun Hiis
Hauge†; Richard Barwell*
*University of Ottawa; †Bergen University College
Yasmine.Abtahi@uottawa.ca, Peter.Gotze@hvl.no, Lisa.Steffensen@hvl.no,
Kjellrun.Hiis.Hauge@hvl.no, Richard.Barwell@uottawa.ca
Abstract
Climate change is one of the most urgent human concerns. Mathematics, in various
degrees of complexity, is used to communicate climate change to scientists,
politicians, policy makers, the general public and children. Drawing on ideas from
critical citizenship and critical mathematics education, we ask how incorporating
issues of climate change into the teaching and learning of mathematics can be
understood as a moral and ethical act? We consider the possible ethical and moral
role of mathematics education at large, as well as the role and challenges of
individual teachers who consider addressing climate change in mathematics
classrooms. We illustrate our discussion with analysis of Canadian and Norwegian
mathematics teachers’ explanations of their thinking about climate change in their
teaching. We conclude that although including climate change in mathematics
classrooms can be (and is) viewed as an ethical responsibility of mathematics
teachers, in their day-to-day practice their decisions about this issue are complex.
Introduction
We often hear stories related to climate change:
“Shrinking glaciers cause state-of-emergency drought in Bolivia.” (The Guardian, Dec,
2016)
“Facing the change: 5 Canadian communities threatened by climate change now” (CBC,
Dec, 2016)
As mathematics educators, should we be ethically and morally concerned when the change in
the Earth’s climate destroys nature and the lives of our fellow human beings? Do we have a
responsibility to act?
Mathematical information is at the heart of communicating, predicting, and working with
issues related to climate change, whether for politicians, scientists or the general public, to
name a few. Yet the complexity of the issue of climate change, as well as the diverse opinions
apparent in the media, can result in individual discomfort or even an inability to respond.
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Although we acknowledge the challenges that are associated with responding to climate
change, we ask whether such reactions—although complex—are part of our ethical and moral
responsibilities to our fellow humans and to nature. Drawing on ideas from critical
citizenship and critical mathematics education, in this article, we open up the landscape of
ethical considerations concerning climate change in the teaching of mathematics. We then
discuss the possible ethical and moral role of mathematics education at large, as well as the
role and challenges of individual teachers who consider addressing climate change in
mathematics classrooms. We illustrate our discussion with examples from a survey of how
mathematics teachers in Norway and Canada included issues related to climate change in
their classrooms. We conclude that although including climate change in mathematics
classrooms can be viewed from a critical mathematics education perspective as an ethical
responsibility of teachers, in their day-to-day practice, teachers face challenges that make the
inclusion of climate change, and the ethical decision-making behind it, a political, value-
laden and complex task.
Context
Climate change is an urgent and complex issue, involving conflicting views and interests: it is
an amalgam of environmental, social, political, democratic, and personal aspects. While some
are concerned about how humans are disturbing the habitats of the Earth, others deny that
climate change can be explained by human influence, and some even deny that climate
change is happening at all. The question of how to respond to climate change and which
values should be prioritized makes climate change an ethically ambiguous problem.
Mathematics plays a central role in describing, predicting and communicating climate change
(Barwell 2013). For example, predictions based on climate models are a core source of
information used to inform decision-makers and the actions that they propose to address
climate change. The application of mathematics within climate science creates abstractions
that influence our way of understanding and thinking about the problem and how we should
respond to it (Hauge and Barwell 2017; Barwell 2013). It is argued that one reason we have
not been able adequately to respond to the crisis of climate change is that the expectations of
what science and mathematical predictions can achieve have been too high (Funtowicz and
Strand 2009).
The complexity of the issue of climate change, as well as the wide variety of opinions,
information, and misinformation available in public media and online may result in personal
discomfort or even an inability to mount a reaction to the issue of climate change (Hulme
2009). Although we acknowledge the challenges that are associated with responding to
climate change, in this paper, we discuss two specific issues: (1) whether we, as mathematics
teachers and educators, have an ethical and moral responsibility to address how climate
change might influence the future of life on Earth and (2) how we, as mathematics teachers
and global citizens, should respond to climate change and its embedded uncertainties. Should
we take action? And what kind of action should we take?
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To discuss these two issues, we draw on the literature on critical mathematics education
(CME), with its democratic perspective on mathematics education, critical citizenship and on
mathematics education for social justice. On the one hand, mathematics, with its power to
describe, predict and model the world, influences our understanding of scientific aspects of
climate change (Barwell 2013) and gives us a tool to think about and communicate about
climate change. On the other hand, there is substantial uncertainty in mathematical
representations and knowledge about climate change and uncertainty in how we best should
respond to this knowledge. Conflicts of interest and uncertainty can cause disagreements
about how to respond to climate change (which explains why there are climate sceptics).
From a democratic point of view, space should be given to conflicting values and
argumentation. We reflect on how the ethical dimension of CME can support our discussion
of what kind of ethical and moral responsibility mathematics education might have,
considering the conflict of interests and the complexity of the topic, both in the educational
realm and in that of ecology. We then consider the level of individual classroom practice,
where the complexity of ethics and teachers’ responsibilities is more immediate.
Much writing on CME implies various political tensions at the heart of mathematics teaching.
Thus, a teacher may fear a political minefield if bringing the topic of climate change into her
classroom while simultaneously having a concern for the learning environment. She may also
experience a tension between her personal political opinions and an aim to include opposing
views. A tension can emerge between an ethical responsibility to introduce a topic like
climate change and the duty to cover specific curriculum topics. We believe that these
tensions complexify the ethical position of teachers at the classroom level. Examples from
our survey data illustrates what action mathematics teachers may (or may not) take, what
ethical principles underlie their thoughts and inform their actions, as well as how the
incorporation of climate change in mathematics lessons can be viewed as an ethical
responsibility of mathematics teachers. These examples lead us to highlight some tensions or
challenges arising in the experiences of teachers who have considered including climate
change in their teaching of mathematics.
The data come from a questionnaire, designed to gain insight into teachers’ reasons for
incorporating issues related to the climate change into their mathematics teaching. We were
mostly interested to know how the teachers incorporated this topic to promote mathematical
learning and vice versa. Among other things, questions were formulated about the teachers’
aims, the types of tasks and tools they used (e.g., websites, data, ICT), and their experiences
of success and failure in incorporating climate change in their mathematics teaching. We were
also interested in how they used data, tables or charts, and what reasons they had for teaching
climate change. The questionnaire was prepared in Norwegian and then translated into
English, with input from the Canadian team members. It was distributed to mathematics
teachers in Norway and in Ontario, Canada (for more details, see Steffensen et al. 2016).
Inspired by Barbosa’s perspectives of mathematical modelling, the study employed the
perspective of climate change as a vehicle to: 1. learn mathematics; 2. learn about climate
change; and 3. encourage critical thinking (Steffensen et al. 2016). We investigated the extent
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to which teachers’ responses could inform research about how teachers connect the topic of
climate change to critical perspectives to achieve critical citizenship. In this paper, we looked
more closely at teachers’ ethical awareness, principles and actions, in relation to the inclusion
or exclusion of the issues of climate change in mathematics classrooms. Throughout all the
sections of this paper, we incorporate quotes from the participating teachers to highlight the
ethical dimensions, perceptions, tensions, and challenges of climate change in the context of
mathematics classrooms.
The ethics of climate change
Climate change is considered by many to be the most important present and future political
problem facing humanity. That thinking about climate change has an ethical dimension that
has long been recognised and is apparent from, for example, current work by UNESCO to
draft a Declaration on Ethical Principles in Relation to Climate Change. Possible ethical
principles under consideration for the declaration include:
Safeguarding the interests of present and future generations
Polluters should pay the price of the damage they cause
Recognition of the interdependence of life on earth
The duty to share scientific knowledge. (UNESCO n. d.)
Discussion of the ethical implications of climate change in the research literature are multiple
and quite varied in nature. For Gardiner (2008), the discipline of ethics should play a
fundamental role in climate change due to the value judgments embedded in decision-making
and the many stakeholders involved, including animals and future generations. He discusses
three factors that threaten our ability to behave ethically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
First, local emissions have a global effect, so decisions in one place can have an impact
around the world. Second, emissions originate from multiple individuals and institutions,
which makes it challenging to respond to climate change. These two factors produce an
ethical challenge analogous to the prisoner’s dilemma: It is rational that people and nations
collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but on an individual level it is not rational
when your contribution alone may not matter much and you do not know whether the others
will reduce their own emissions. To this point, Stoll-Kleemann, O’Riordan & Jaeger (2001)
add that the complexity, uncertainty and the potentially huge impact climate change could
have for individuals can lead to a denial of responsibility and a feeling of powerlessness: It
may be better to wait for other people or countries to react, before sacrifices are regarded as
worthwhile.
The third challenging factor Gardiner (2008) discusses is institutional inadequacy. He argues
that the lack of reliable global enforcement makes an ethical response to climate change
difficult. The fact that some people and nations suffer, or will suffer, more from climate
change than others, augments the challenge of this factor. Other factors he mentions include
scientific uncertainty, economic interests and doubts about whether climate change is even a
problem. Gardiner further points to the increased challenge the delayed effect of greenhouse
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gas emissions has on all these factors and how most decision-making fails to take future
generations into account. Moreover, he claims that moral corruption is seen in many
argumentation strategies in the political debate: “distraction, complacency, unreasonable
doubt, selective attention, delusion, pandering, false witness and hypocrisy” (Gardiner 2008
p. 36).
While Gardiner (2008) expresses concern about people’s “unreasonable doubt” about climate
change as a reason for not wanting to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Funtowicz and Strand
(2011) have argued that the inherent uncertainty of climate change requires a different
approach. They argue that while climate science has provided information to politicians and
citizens about the threats of climate change, it cannot possibly dictate how global society
should act on this information. That is, they challenge the expectation that science can
provide predictions to “lend decisive authority to the mobilisation of collective action” (ibid.
p. 999). Funtowicz and Strand propose instead that, as a society, we need to conceive and
construct the future we want and then work towards it, rather than work within a paradigm
largely based on a process of rational prediction that erases human values.
Raymond’s (2006) approach is based on the ethics of the commons. He recognizes the earth’s
atmosphere as a global common good and discusses various principles for a fair and equitable
climate change treaty. What is considered fair and equitable is shown to be greatly
controversial because of the environmental and economic stakes. Raymond discusses various
ethics-based principles that have been proposed for how greenhouse gas emissions levels
should be allocated and distributed between nations. The principle of equal burdens, for
instance, implies that nations reduce their emissions relative to their total present emission
levels. This is based on the idea that the burden of reducing emissions should be equal. An
alternative principle is based equal human rights, allowing an emission level per capita. A
version of this approach is to adjust the level in accordance with the nation’s subsistence
needs or vulnerability to future climate change impacts. Each approach offers a different
version of fairness, but is based on somewhat different ethical assumptions. For example,
Raymond argues that a per capita approach is based on an unhelpfully uncompromising
rhetoric of universal rights. Others might counter that such an argument is convenient for
citizens of industrialised countries.
The third perspective we will mention is due to Hourdequin (2010), who draws on a
Confucian relational approach. From a Confucian perspective, persons are formed by and
through their relationships with others. Hourdequin states that:
Just as individuals are not atomistic, narrowly self-interested actors, isolated from one
another in their decisions and values, actions at the individual level are not divorced
from those in the political sphere. A commitment at the personal level may in fact spur
greater awareness and more careful consideration of the kinds of political changes that
may be most effective (p. 456).
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To Hourdequin (2010), the ethical importance and effectiveness of personal choices are that
they have “a communicative and social function”. That is, individual beliefs and actions gain
their ethical and moral values in a social context. Within such a view, we are relational actors,
making decisions based on stands intertwined with social and political values. With respect to
climate change, Hourdequin (2010) argues that it is a personal ethical moral responsibility to
attend to the issue of climate change, but further claims that these responsibilities do not end
at the personal level and that one’s personal actions ought to be constituted from the broader
social and political worlds.
These various perspectives on the ethics of climate change highlight the complexity of this
issue. Thinking through the ethical implications of climate change is complex because it
involves and affects all human beings (in fact, all living beings) in different ways. Different
sets of principles highlight different ethical dimensions, as we seek to demonstrate in the
context of mathematics teaching, in the rest of this paper.
Some of the responses of the teachers who participated in our study show that the ethics of
climate change is implicitly a concern. After teaming up with her colleagues, for example,
one teacher said that she presented “ethics-related topics in class and would regularly present
current events to discuss and debate”. Her action of incorporating climate change in to her
teaching of mathematics is formed by her awareness and considerations of the broader events
and ethical debates in society. Many respondents mentioned that an important reason for
working with climate change in mathematics lessons was to discuss and critically reflect on
such issues. The issue of uncertainty is apparent in several responses to the effect that that
climate modelling is too complicated and advanced to bring up in classrooms. Even simple
mathematical modelling activities can, however, provide students with experience of the
limitations of mathematics models, including their uncertainties and ambiguities. This kind of
approach could provide the basis for reflections on the role of mathematics and models in
climate change, the controversies relating to climate facts and more ethical discussion of
desirable futures, such as, for instance the need for fresh water supplies mentioned by one of
the teachers in the study. While there is evidence, then, that mathematics teachers in the study
were aware of some of the ethical dimensions of climate change, our focus in this paper is on
the ethics of addressing climate change in mathematics classrooms.
Critical mathematics education
In this section, we look to the literature on critical mathematics education (CME) to find
perspectives that can support our discussion on whether mathematics education has an ethical
responsibility to address climate change, why and how. The extensive work in CME on
teaching and learning for critical citizenship is particularly relevant (e.g. Skovsmose 1994,
2011). Ideas on critical citizenship are connected to engaging students in socio-political
topics, of which climate change is an example, and/or enabling students to reflect and act on
such issues. This value-based stance can be understood as an ethically motivated concern
about what the aims of mathematics education should be because developing democratic
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capacities or addressing certain issues is considered the right thing to do. Part of the literature
is also on the role of mathematics in society and on its contribution to injustice or its role in
producing destructive technologies. Also, climate science is associated with uncertainty, and
there is disagreement on how this uncertainty should be acted upon. The responsibility of
mathematics education to address climate change can, from these perspectives, be based on
the idea that students need to learn to take care of the Earth or, more democratically, on the
idea that students need to learn about why there are value conflicts related to climate change.
In this section we present and discuss the above and related ideas from CME in more depth.
Mathematics education and mathematics teachers possess power and trust through their
positions. They have a responsibility towards the common good (d’Ambrosio 2010). One
such responsibility that has been addressed is to educate for critical citizenship, which is
based on an ethical value stance where critique is seen as essential in a democratic society
(see, for example, Ernest 2002; Skovsmose 1992). As a student and as a citizen, one should
be able not only to understand and reflect on important social and political aspects of society;
one should also be able to critique these aspects. This position implies that mathematics
teachers and students should also be engaged in socio-political issues, such as climate
change, when teaching and learning mathematics
Skovsmose argues that three types of knowings are necessary to highlight when teaching
mathematics in a socio-political context (Skovsmose 1992, 1994). These are, mathematical,
technological and reflective knowing, which represent competences related to mathematical
content knowledge (computing an average of given numbers), the application of mathematics
(e.g. modelling average global temperature) and reflective knowledge (reflecting on the role
of mathematics in climate change). The latter relates to reflecting on the consequences of how
mathematics is both used and applied. Reflective knowing extends from a right-wrong
dichotomy in mathematics education to reflections about the wider social context of applied
mathematics. Skovsmose connects reflective knowing to what he calls the formatting power
of mathematics – the power that the application of mathematics has on understanding a topic
(1992, 1994).
There is mathematics education literature on climate change that has drawn on Skovsmose’s
notion of different kinds of knowing mathematics, including reflective knowing, which
involves an awareness of how mathematics is implicated in social life, including the
disadvantages of a mathematical approach to problem-solving. The intention of addressing
climate change in this literature both incorporates learning about the topic of climate change,
but also on the way mathematics comes to shape social reality, known as formatting power
(Skovsmose 1994). Both intentions are ethics based, since learning about the topic reflects a
concern for the future of the Earth and learning about formatting power in relation to climate
change reflects a concern for how mathematics can (or cannot) solve the problem. Barwell
(2013), for example, examines different kinds of mathematical knowing in relation to climate
change and emphasises how mathematics shapes our understanding and experience of climate
change. He points to how mathematics is, at a fundamental level, what makes it possible to
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observe and think about climate change. Climate change, that is the description that changes
in the climate are taking place, relies on the mathematical descriptions of weather over time.
The application of mathematics is formatting in the sense that, among other things, it allows
us to talk about climate as though it is predictable, which in turn allows us to discuss how our
actions might impact future climate.
This mathematical abstraction of climate change involves many unavoidable elements of
uncertainty. Hauge and Barwell (2015) looked at how uncertainty is expressed in texts on
predictions of temperature change, and Hauge (2016) analysed how pre-service teachers
reflect on the many facets of uncertainty in a discussion about predicted temperature change.
Insights about characteristics of uncertainty, such as natural variation, limitations of linear
regressions or whether uncertainty can be reduced, are valuable in understanding why climate
scientists and climate sceptics can disagree on climate “facts”. Also, insights about the
limitations of what can be expected from scientific and mathematical representations can
influence where to find solutions to the problems of climate change, as Funtowicz and Strand
(2011) have suggested. Working with uncertainty in mathematics classrooms can be regarded
as an ethical responsibility if it facilitates an understanding of different viewpoints and
encourages a search for new solutions. Uncertainly was a point that was brought up by some
of the teachers in our study, both in terms of conflicting values and also in relation to how to
incorporate the topic into their teaching. For example, a participant referring to multiple
views about climate change stated: “that are too many ‘I believe’s in the climate debate.
Teachers are no exception and I am one of those. If we get too eager in promoting our views
it will easily become unreasonable”.
The issue of conflicting values is related to Skovsmose’s concept of reflective knowing,
which involves understanding the role of mathematics in its social context. According to
Skovsmose, reflective knowing is beneficial for critical citizenship and depends on
mathematical and technological knowing. The concern for critical citizenship is closely
connected to the value of democracy and democratic participation. Aguilar and Zavaleta
(2012) address how mathematics education could, amongst other things, serve as a provider
of critical mathematical skills useful for democracy and as a source of values and attitudes.
They express mathematics for critical citizenship as:
the mathematical knowledge that allows students to use mathematics to analyze social
problems or to address issues relevant in their personal lives. Such critical mathematical
skills enable students to identify and judge how mathematics is applied to address
socially relevant issues, as well as to reflect on the consequences of their application.
(p.7)
In this approach, understanding of societal issues and mathematical competences should be
developed together. Skovsmose promoted a mathematics education that enables students to
engage in societal issues through “acting in the world structured by mathematics”
(Skovsmose 1998, p. 200). Likewise, Gutstein (2006) argues that mathematics education
should strive to give students mathematical competences in order to both understand social
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issues and to be able to make change (reading and writing the world). Gutstein also analyzes
the practical complexities of both facilitating learning about the political role of mathematics
in society and supporting academic success in the traditional sense (e.g., passing high stakes
tests). Similarly Brantlinger (2013) points to his experiences with implementing a critical
mathematics approach, finding that there were some trade-off between learning about a
societal issue and learning mathematics. This point is reflected in our survey: one respondent,
for example, addressed the following challenge:
There is no room for climate [change] in mathematics education and I find it
uninteresting to oversimplify certain graphs to squeeze them into mathematics. The
climate debate takes up enough space as it is.
Climate change is a complex topic, and this respondent expresses a concern about
oversimplifying the mathematics or having the issue take up too much space. Another
respondent in the study highlighted the potentially strong opinions of the students: “It is a
challenge that the students have strong opinion related to certain political issue that
sometimes is an obstacle for critical thinking on different sources, especially media
coverage.” If climate change is as an example of a socio-political issue that CME literature
argues should be addressed in mathematics education, the question nevertheless arises as to
whether it is too political and controversial to bring into the classroom or even of whether it
is a responsibility of mathematics education at all.
In the CME literature, the notion of responsibility is sometimes referred to as response-ablity
(e.g., Atweh 2012; Atweh & Brady 2009). Atweh and Brady (2009) suggest that mathematics
education has an ethical responsibility to “support students’ response-ability not only to read
the world but also to transform the world” (p. 274). This emphasis on response-ability could
be thought of both as the responsibility for mathematics education to for instance engage in
topics like climate change, but also for facilitating student’s ability to be responsible. This
approach implies introducing real-world problems to students in mathematics classes that
matter for them (Atweh & Brady 2009). Working with climate change data, either as a socio-
political issue or as climate science, could be an example of reading the world (see Coles et
al. 2013, for examples). A desire to transform the world could result from awareness of the
social injustice of the effects of climate change, such as the destruction of habitats, food
sources and communities. This dialectic relationship between reading and transforming the
world could then be the foundation for response-ability with real-world problems.
The answer to the question of whether mathematics education has a responsibility to work
with climate change is naturally dependent on one’s stance on what mathematics education
should be and what purpose it should have. CME can be regarded as a counter reaction to the
view that mathematics is neutral and mathematics education should be neutral. For instance,
Koestler (2017) criticizes the idea that “‘the actual math’ exists as a decontextualized entity
separate from the social, cultural, and historical context in which it was created and is
currently used” (p. 58). Similarly, Skovsmose (1992) claims that the neutrality of
mathematics is an illusion, since models are always designed with a purpose and that
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assumptions and simplifications need to be made to transform a real world problem into a
solvable mathematical problem. Mathematics is used by politicians and bureaucrats to mask
biases and claim objectivity (Wagner & Davis 2010, cited in Aguilar & Zavaleta 2012).
Indeed, Greer (2008) argues that when mathematics education does not deal with societal
issues and controversies, it gives students the impression that mathematics is value-free and
non-political. He further argues that this is, in fact, a political statement about the nature of
mathematics.
Skovsmose (1992) confronts the belief of classical mathematics education that from focusing
only on mathematical and technical knowledge in school, students will automatically be able
to reflect on mathematics in society and respond in democratic processes. However, the issue
of climate change may be perceived as too complex and controversial by many mathematics
educators. This point is illustrated by some of our survey respondents. One teacher found it
challenging to find “good updated sources which are not political” (our emphasis) when
teaching climate change in class. This statement suggests a wish for mathematics education to
be neutral, or at least a tension around what materials can safely be presented in class.
Another respondent wrote that:
Education in school about climate change is almost indoctrination. The school invites
delegates and enviromental organisations with state funding, and climate threats are
being poured on top. Nothing is being put into a historical context for instance the
heatwave in the Viking age when Norwegians settled in Greenland and farmed the land
or the small ice age. Everything is about the last decades both for those visiting and in
the school books.
This respondent is critical of the value stance taken in school in relation to climate change.
This teacher’s argument is not that education should be neutral, but rather a wish for a
balanced education where reflections from several viewpoints are included and “put into a
historical context”. Another respondent puts it in a slightly different way:
It is very common that students are unable to manage all the competence aims in
mathematics and physics I therefore try to limit myself to the fundamental goals for the
subjects and not expand the subject with topics that are not explicitly mentioned.
Furthermore, there are too many “I believes” in the climate debate. Teachers are no
exception and I am one of those. If we get too eager in promoting our views, it will
easily become unreasonable.
The consideration of social and political values in relation to mathematics education and
issues of climate change thus provides us with an understanding of the interrelationship
between mathematics education and social, political and ecological worlds around us, in a
broader sense. The kinds of dilemmas raised by the teachers quoted above, however, are not
simply about curriculum content or the political context of schooling; they are also about
whys and how(s) of decisions made in the classroom, which we discuss in the next section.
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Ethics at interactional level
Skovsmose and Greer (2012) claim that “of profound political importance is the challenge to
mathematicians and mathematics educators to accept ethical responsibilities” (p. 4). This
position implies that our society depends on mathematics educators who are willing to accept
that the teaching and learning of mathematics involves ethical responsibilities. At the
individual and interactional level, then, a choice of whether to include (or not) mathematical
contexts and activities that are related to climate change, becomes an ethical responsibility for
mathematics educators and has implications for social justice (Boylan 2013) and for social
injustice, for that matter.
The question of how to understand (ethical) responsibility and response-ability in practice is
not, however, easy to answer, and there is obviously not one correct way of dealing with it.
Much writing about CME, moreover, is somewhat theoretical, offering valuable critique and
developing ideas for classroom practice, but less often investigating the nature of that practice
and the tensions that may arise. In the context of contested issues, such as climate change,
there is often a myriad of ethical dilemmas at this level of teachers’ practices and activities in
classrooms.
Boylan (2016) proposes three principle meanings of an ethical dimension of classroom
practice: (i) the relational awareness; (ii) the action taken; and (iii) the ethical principles that
inform the actions. Teachers’ activities implicate students and teachers as political members
of society; ethics becomes an inescapable responsibility to the other, rooted in the collective
ethical understanding of communities. Hence, any ethical choices that mathematics educators
make become more ambivalent and complex (Boylan 2013, 2016). Teachers may face ethical
challenges or other practical challenges that made ethical decision-making and ethical actions
more difficult. These challenges relate to, for example, the degree of involvement and interest
of students in the issue of climate change, the possible discomfort of students, the uncertainty
of how to respond, the unclear path of any possible contributions of their actions to the wider
society, and finally a more general sense of dealing with the unknown. Other than their own
socio-political stances, teachers also face practical obstacles in incorporating issues related to
climate change in their mathematics classrooms, such as lack of resources, lack of sources of
data related to their immediate community, curriculum mandates (or lack of them), and lack
of time. In this section, we highlight some of these tensions of practice, drawing on examples
from our survey.
When teachers decide to bring the issue of climate change into the mathematics classroom,
one ethical issue is that of ethical filtration. Skovsmose (2008) emphasises this concept when
discussing the modelling of complex real-life situations. In the modelling process, the
modeller makes certain decisions on what to include and exclude. Aspects left out
(consciously or not) could be considered as an ethical filtration, or an ethical selection.
Ethical filtration then involves taking a complex situation, such as climate change and
stripping away many of the ethical consideration initially observed in the process of
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mathematising the problem into a technically administrable system (Skovsmose 2008). In
effect, mathematical and technical knowing are involved, while reflective knowing is not. For
example, one teacher explained that “Actual climate models are extremely advanced and
much of the criticism relates to weaknesses in the modeling process.” He then found it not
useful to present a simplistic version of the modeling, as he stated: “I don’t think that a
simplified presentation of climate modelling within mathematics education is a useful
contribution to the students climate competency.” Another teacher explained that what the
mathematics students know is limited; hence it is harder to reveal the depths and complexity
of the issues using the mathematical concepts students know. She explained:
this is a way too limited foundation to do anything meaningful, since the students know
way too little mathematics, It is not possible to make any models beyond the most basic
ones, which quickly becomes a matter of fitting polynomials or others[?] to the average
temperature. This does not provide enough depth to defend climate models as theme to
be brought up.
For both these teachers, students’ perceived lack of mathematical and technical knowing
appears to be an obstacle for the teachers to work on reflective knowing with their students,
amounting to a form of ethical filtration that may be particular to classroom contexts.
Another ethical tension that teachers face in including issues of climate change into the
mathematics classrooms relates to the emotional wellbeing of their students. Should the
issues of climate change be included if it causes students discomfort? Opinions on this kind
of question differ. Ambrose (2004) argues that there is a tendency for teachers to avoid
challenging real-life experiences in classrooms as an expression of caring for their students.
Bartell (2011), on the other hand, proposes that caring should rather imply exposing students
to difficult conversations, while supporting them to do so. The media debate on climate
change can be quite harsh or confusing, which supports the idea that carefully bringing the
topic into the classroom can be regarded as a form of caring. For example, a respondent
explained that he does not include climate change into his earlier grade classed, as it causes
fear:
This is why it is not something to focus on at the earlier grades because it creates fear
without the possibility of action, which creates helplessness which defeats, the whole
point.
Another teacher explained that “Sometimes, students find the doom and gloom aspect,
boring. Others internalize it and find it scary”. For both teachers, the tendency is to avoid
including climate change in their classrooms, due to an ethical consideration of caring for
children.
The global and overwhelming complexity of climate change also creates barriers for ethical
consideration of teaching such subject. Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole, and Whitmarsh (2007)
highlight some of the barriers such as lack of knowledge, externalizing responsibility, and
sense of helplessness. When teachers were asked if they experience challenges in teaching
climate change, one teacher answered: “That students don’t think they can make a difference
12
on the global situation. That it does not have anything to say whether they recycle or take
shorter showers”. The challenge this teacher expressed related to the feeling of despair and
helplessness in dealing with complexity of climate change. In another example, other teachers
explained that climate change “creates fear without the possibility of action which creates
helplessness which defeats the whole point” and that discussing issues of climate change is
“inappropriate before Grade 7 because it creates fear without them being able to do anything
about it. It is self-defeating.” From one point of view, one could question whether teachers
should expose students to these problems, if there is nothing or little one can do as a person to
individually “solve or overcome” the problems. From another perspective, one could say that
students already face such questions, and that the real question one should consider as a
teacher, is whether the students have to deal with them alone, or in a classroom environment
where they can actively engage in dialogue with others.
In this section, we have highlighted some of the ethical principles that informed teacher’s
actions in certain ways, including the inclusion or exclusion of climate change in their
mathematics classrooms. A point we wish to highlight here is that similar ethical principles
can lead to different ethical choices. Issues such as ethical filtration, the emotional wellbeing
of the students and the overwhelming complexity of the issues of climate change bring up
ethical decisions of including and excluding the issues of climate change in their mathematics
classrooms. For the above mentioned reasons, some teachers found it more ethical to not
include climate change as a social issue in their classrooms, whereas others perceived the
inclusion of the issues as more ethical.
Teachers did not always have well-defined beliefs and perception about the issues of climate
change. Hence, teachers also expressed a general feeling of being unsure about how to act.
For example, when teachers where asked how they could imagine working with climate
change if resources were sufficient, one teacher responded: “I would have worked with it in
social studies, economics and ethics. What should we do and why? How can we weigh
different solutions against each other?” This teacher is concerned with action and the reasons
for those actions, and, interestingly, would include the different perspectives of several
subject areas, including ethics. It is not only teachers’ beliefs and principles that lead them to
certain actions, then; teachers also face practical challenges that affect their decision-making.
Such decisions are also ethical as they may over-ride the values of the wider community with
which they are in relation. These challenges include curriculum constraints, class sizes and
time. One teacher mentioned that: “They [issues of climate change] do not have any
significance in respect to the curriculum. Sadly we have to prioritize to make it through the
curriculum.” And another teachers stated the problem of “Big classes with big differences
[academic] level, motivation and participation” as challenges she faced which made “Little
possibility to use issues of climate change”.
As we have illustrated, teachers experience tensions at different levels, when they attempt to
open up discussions around the issues of climate change into their mathematics classrooms.
Nevertheless, if these openings do not exist for students in the mathematics classroom, the
13
opportunities for students to develop critical agency seem more difficult to achieve. Atweh
(2012) links the ethics of choices and actions to the relationship between mathematics and
democratic participation of both teachers and students: teachers’ decisions about inclusion or
exclusion of climate change in their teaching plays an important role in students’ critical
awareness of the issues. A focus on ethical responsibility can strengthen teachers’
professionalism and allow them to better take into consideration students’ social and political
lifeworlds (Atweh & Brady 2009). Renert (2011, p. 20), for example, draws on personal
experience as a mathematics teacher and researcher, to raise awareness about the ethical
importance of including climate change in classrooms. Promoting the need to involve
students in such a way so they become aware of the “imminent environmental catastrophes”,
he suggests that by integrating environmental issues in mathematics classrooms one could
enable students to see the world differently, making connections, and “moving to ethical
action as a result of increased awareness” (2011, p. 21).
Discussion and conclusions
Ethics is an unavoidable aspect of mathematics education. Since teachers are not isolated
from others in their decisions and values, their actions at an individual level are not detached
from those in the political and social sphere. Critical mathematics education highlights the
importance of bringing socio-political topics into the classroom in order to enable students to
use mathematics to understand and reflect on the topic, as well as to appreciate the
mathematical dimensions of such issues. This argument goes further than engaging students
with such topics for the sake of inspiring mathematics learning. This stance can be
understood as mathematics education having an ethical responsibility to teach mathematics in
a way that empowers students to be able to act on injustice. An important value underlying
this approach is that an ethically just democracy needs critical citizens as agents of change.
Climate change is one such socio-political issue where injustice can be connected to impacts
on individuals, peoples and generations, and the environment. Mathematics education can
contribute to understanding these impacts of climate change.
Critical mathematics education also underlines the formatting power of mathematics,
implying that the way mathematics shapes society and our lives can be questioned. From this
point of view, mathematics education has an ethical responsibility to enable students to take
up such questions. This could include reflecting on uncertainty associated with climate
science, the role of this uncertainty and more generally, the role of mathematics based
knowledge in finding solutions to the problem and how it influences (re)actions, both positive
and negative. Critical mathematics education promotes an understanding of mathematics that
is about more than computation and the narrow application of mathematics: rather, it
promotes reflection on how mathematics is applied in society. If climate change is the most
urgent of global problems, it can be argued that mathematics education has an ethical
responsibility to facilitate learning about this multi-faceted problem through mathematics, but
also to reflect on the role of mathematics in climate change. In this respect, climate change
can be seen as a complex real-life situation, where teachers can make transparent the
14
formatting power of mathematics, and where students are allowed and encouraged to critique
(with) mathematics. It can also be seen as an opportunity for teachers to let ethical
considerations be an integrated part of mathematics education, and not detached from
problem solving.
While the perspective of critical mathematics education implies a clear imperative for
addressing climate change in mathematics classrooms, our discussion of ethics at the level of
classroom processes suggests that this imperative may not be so easy to put into practice. An
attempt to engage with and to mathematize the issues of climate change can conceal different
ethical tensions. Our examples highlight some of the political and value-laden practices and
challenges facing mathematics educators at the level of individual actions.
Teachers make complex and ethical choices, in relation to including (or not) climate change
as part of their mathematics teaching. On the one hand, these choices are made in the light of
teachers’ own broader social and political value stances, ethical beliefs and the recognition of
the ethical importance of incorporating climate change into their teaching of mathematics. On
the other hand, teachers’ choice and actions, at a classroom level, are on the basis of their
relationships to their students and to other social groups. Hence, teachers’ awareness of the
potential ethical significance of climate change does not necessarily lead to the act of
including climate change in their mathematics classroom. So for teachers, ethics include
sensitivity to their relationships with their students and their needs. Boylan (2016) sees the
ethical responsibilities of the teachers not as an isolated matters but in relation to their
relational awareness of not only the ethical significance of climate change but also of the
needs of others with whom teachers in relation. Hence, the action teachers take are part of an
ethical relational web with others (students, the curriculum, community, etc.), and for which
teachers are responsible. The ethical principles on which teachers base their own ethical
philosophy are not always that easy to achieve. The uncertainty, value conflicts, controversies
in the media and finally the complexity of the mathematical and scientific background of the
issue of climate change make it particularly challenging for teachers to form their own
individual beliefs around this issue of climate change.
We acknowledge and respect the ethical challenges teachers face in their attempts to include
issues of climate change into their classrooms. We argue that these challenges need to be
faced and addressed not only by the community of mathematics educators but by other social
educational actors, such as ministries of education and curriculum authors. Our rationale for
such a position is based on two essentials. Firstly, the climate change is one of the most (if
not the most) urgent issues of the Earth today. Secondly, students of today are the decision
makers of tomorrow. The social forces that are in play in the issues of climate change, are
multiple and potentially powerful. Our students potentially have the power to effect change,
both on an individual and a societal level. We, mathematics educators, also have the power to
effect change: taking an ethically responsible stance towards engaging students in critical
citizenship. By enabling students to critique mathematics and to critique with mathematics in
the classroom, and by integrating moral and ethical questions in a non-normative way,
15
mathematics educators can help students evolve as critical citizens to reflect on the different
challenges of climate change and to become active participants of democratic societies.
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