Mathematics as a school subject is a cultural product developed by generations of mathematicians. The conventions we teach—the symbols we privilege, the names we memorialize, and the algorithms we call “standard”—are culturally constructed and historically exclusive. By uncritically reproducing these conventions, we risk reinforcing an epistemology that denies students’ cultural and intellectual identities. This session introduces a framework that organizes mathematical conventions into seven categories and invites participants to acknowledge their origins, examine their rationales, and explore non-Western alternatives through interactive tasks that involve unpacking, breaking, and reimagining familiar conventions in mathematics teaching and learning.
