I woke up enthusiastic today, maybe because I’d finally slept, maybe because I could feel how full the day was going to be before I’d even opened my eyes: two plenary talks, an interview with a sparkly gem of a person, lunch with my son, a run of short papers, a workshop where I got to read part of a play (Petsinis, 2026), and the fashion show waiting at the end of it all. It felt like a lot. Looking back now, it was wonderful, and it left me thinking about stories, questions, and how I might carry some of this back to my own classroom.
The first plenary was Amy Alznauer, and I’d been looking
forward to her talk since I first read her bio and some of her books. She is,
unmistakably, a storyteller, and her talk carried that same feeling and
curiosity into the room. She built her talk around amateurs: her own father
stumbling onto Ramanujan’s lost notebook, Sallie Wolf charting the moon with
her own body as instrument, and Marjorie Rice discovering pentagonal tilings
from her kitchen table (Alznauer, 2026). I kept scribbling down the same handful
of words: questions, obsessions, amateurs, curiosity.
Why do we tell stories? That question sat underneath the
whole talk. Turning it over for myself, I think it’s because stories are how we
connect, how we hand a piece of shared human experience to someone else. Amy
quoted Anne Carson: “A question can travel into an answer as water into
thirst.” Maybe mathematics and stories aren’t as far apart as we like to think.
She also talked about children needing to see mathematics as
something creative and adventurous rather than simply a place where you’re
either right or wrong. I found myself thinking about how rarely my students get
to be fascinated by a problem instead of just solving it, and how much of that
comes down to knowing what already delights them.
That same thread, entry points into ideas, kept surfacing
throughout the day. Clare Moriarty spoke about Oliver Byrne’s colourful version
of Euclid, which uses diagrams to communicate geometric ideas (Moriarty, 2026).
Gary Lester talked about the importance of approaching a topic like a novice rather
than an expert (Lester, 2026). That one stuck with me because I’ve lived the
version where a lesson flops because I assumed something was simple. My own
expertise got in the way. I’d have taught it better if I’d remembered to
imagine it as brand new.
Other speakers explored children’s books, LEGO, embroidery,
and kolam as ways into mathematical ideas (Kopyt, 2026; Reimann, 2026; Ryan,
2026; Elangaivendan et al., 2026). Sometimes the art helps us see the
mathematics differently. Sometimes the mathematics helps us enter the art.
Either way, I keep coming back to the idea of a doorway: how do we build one
that lets someone actually walk through?
And then I’m left wondering: What happens after the book is
closed, the sculpture finished, the play read aloud? What conversations keep
going? Which questions actually stay with a child once the lesson is over? How
do I help that happen, rather than just hoping it does?
Today I listened to mathematicians, authors, artists,
philosophers, and teachers talk about mathematics in all sorts of ways, and
somewhere in the middle of it, I think I started to understand why this
conference matters to me the way it does.
When I first arrived at Bridges, I felt like I owed the room
an apology for who I was in relation to mathematics.
I’m not a mathematician. I’m a primary teacher. I love
books, telling stories, and children who ask strange questions and land on
unexpected connections. I’d been treating those things as if they pushed me to
the edge of this community. But what if they don’t? What if being drawn to
story is one of the ways I contribute here? What if noticing how children come
into mathematics is its own kind of expertise? I don’t have to be the person
who already knows the mathematics. Maybe I can be the person who notices the
spark and helps someone want to know it. I’m ending the day feeling
like maybe I belong here after all.
References
Alznauer, A. (2026). Lunar music, lost notebooks, pentagons, and paralysis: How the hidden stories of amateurs – of those who love – offer vital counsel to both mathematicians and artists [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture, Galway, Ireland. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-3.html
Elangaivendan, P., John, C., & Chandrasekharan, S. (2026). Making kolam accessible through representational restructuration. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-545.html
Kopyt, M. (2026). Talking about mathematics through books. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-537.html
Lester, G. (2026). Art as mathematical representation: A practice-based investigation of cognition and pedagogy. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-553.html
Moriarty, C. (2026). Semiotics, ease, and elegance: Oliver Byrne's Elements of Euclid [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture, Galway, Ireland. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-1.html
Petsinis, T. (2026). Mathematics on show [Workshop]. Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture, Galway, Ireland. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-685.html
Reimann, D. (2026). Using LEGO® elements to communicate mathematical concepts. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-549.html
Ryan, G. (2026). Threaded theorems: Hand embroidery as mathematics outreach. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-541.html
“Maybe I can be the person who notices the spark and helps someone want to know it.”
ReplyDeleteI think that having this goal makes you part of the Bridges community. I feel like many presenters here share a similar goal: sharing their passion in hope that it will spark a curiosity. I also think that having this goal as an educator could help students re-story their relationships with mathematics. I would love to have students who are used to the playfulness and exploration of mathematics, because the students I get in grade 9-10-11 are often very math anxious.
Amy Alznauer (2026) and Nick Sayers (2026) both admitted they did not like mathematics, until they found a branch (geometry for Nick and doing mathematics with her father for Amy). Tom Verhoeff (personal communication, August 5th, 2026), a mathematics professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology questions how we teach mathematics in school: learning formulas and concepts by heart and then learning how to apply them by heart. He also questions how we can nurture students’ curiosity on a topic if we have a class of 20-30 students. He considers himself lucky that his father, Koos Verhoeff, also a mathematician, was right by his side to foster his curiosity and help him develop his ability to ask questions that mattered.
I think that it is very important that mathematics educators vary their pedagogic approaches to mathematics, in hope that it will spark interest in some of our students and hopefully make them keep asking questions and be curious. I think that being curious does not only help with learning any subject, but it also gives someone a purpose. As Anton Bakker (2026) was mentioning, we are living in a society where we lost ‘our brain’. I think that this impacts us in a way that we lose sense of purpose, but this sense is extremely important to thrive as a human (Kimmerer, 2024). Having a purpose makes us happy.
References
Alznauer, A. (2026, August 7th). Lunar music, lost notebooks, pentagons, and paralysis: How the hidden stories of amateurs – of those who love – offer vital counsel to both mathematicians and artists [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026, Galway, Ireland.
Bakker, A. & Verhoeff, T. (2026, August 5th). From Koos puzzle to lattice sculptures: Navigating vast spaces of form, meaning, and wonder . [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026, Galway, Ireland.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2024, Nov. 21). Practical reverence. [Interview]. Emergence. https://emergencemagazine.org/conversation/practical-reverence
Sayers, N. (2026, August 6th). Math-art with meaning: Exploration in artistic mathematics [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026, Galway, Ireland.
@Kristie,
ReplyDelete“And then I’m left wondering: What happens after the book is closed, the sculpture finished, the play read aloud? What conversations keep going? Which questions actually stay with a child once the lesson is over? How do I help that happen, rather than just hoping it does?”
I was wondering something similar. I keeping trying to imagine the best bang-for-buck math/art piece that will spark questions, make a lasting impression, etc. Is it musical? How could it be musical? As soon as the note ends in performance art, then the math ends. Does it not leave a lasting impression though? An earworm that you continue to feel or hum? How about a math/art performance where the variables in a formula taught Euler (Petsinis, 2026)? Are we still thinking about the jokes, and how they make sense given our mathematical understanding? Does that not encourage us to make our own mathematical jokes? Or should it a sculpture that you need to touch like Lester’s Janus (Lester, 2026) where it can remain in your hands and physically present with you for the longest time? How can we invite the participant to mull over, marinate, and generate wonder based on what they’ve experienced? I am inclined to say that there is no silver bullet math/art piece, but inspired by what my students reported at the end of EDCP 512; all my approaches that were attempted using math art provided a fuller understanding of the math, one approach was not better than the other and shouldn’t be placed in a hierarchy.
Before I showed up for the conference, I spent a lot of time trying to understand each paper starting with an expectation that the other participants will show up and understand the notation, conventions and reasoning behind all the choices to represent their art in a mathematical way. Needless to say, I was struggling with the symbolic representations and felt totally out of place arriving a day late and without clarity.
It was a relief to hear that the presenters themselves needed to walk the audience through what they were trying to communicate through their symbols and were able to simplify their processes conversationally during their presentations. They each were able to place themselves in a peripheral role (rather than central role as discussed by Alznauer, 2026) and deliver a talk as a novice to another novice solidifying this idea by Lester (2026) of good teaching.
References:
Alznauer, A. (2026). Lunar music, lost notebooks, pentagons, and paralysis: How the hidden stories of amateurs – of those who love – offer vital counsel to both mathematicians and artists [Conference presentation]. Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture, Galway, Ireland. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-3.html
Lester, G. (2026). Art as mathematical representation: A practice-based investigation of cognition and pedagogy. In Proceedings of Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Tessellations Publishing. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-553.html
Petsinis, T. (2026). Mathematics on show [Workshop]. Bridges 2026: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture, Galway, Ireland. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2026/bridges2026-685.html