Mathematics Education Out in the Rural Scape : Experimenting With Radical Democracy for Commons

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a pedagogic experimentation in the rural scape at a Greek village that tends to challenge the neoliberal and capitalist politics of economic austerity in the area. A group of young educated people in their 30s instead of migrating to the ‘West’ for a secure job have opted to return at their place of origin for a way of living around the values of a common ownership economy. They experiment with a vision of radical democratic pedagogy as vital for life. It unfolds in their relations, first with children as part of an after-school workshop and second with the adults in varied interactions as part of sharing knowledge for manual work in the land and with hand-made constructions. As such mathematical ideas, skills and competences are being entangled in diverse opportunities of life reorganisation around what they perceive as their commons