University mathematics as a discourse – why, how, and what for?

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Notes

1. Example 1 shows a sample of students' joint work, as set up by the researchers. Thus, although such groups arise spontaneously in many universities, this form of learning cannot count as an example of university instructional strategy.

2. These observations and concerns about the current tendency to silence people's inner discourses and about its possible impact on creative mathematical thinking found unexpected support just as I was completing this last paragraph. It came from Peter Higgs, Nobel Prize recipient, who gave his name to the boson also known as ‘the God particle’. In an interview for the Guardian that he gave while on his way to the Nobel Prize ceremony, Higgs remarked: “It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964” (Guardian, 6 December 2013).