From the Bottom Up—Reinventing Realistic Mathematics Education in Southern Argentina

This chapter focuses on the Grupo Patagonico de Didactica de la Matematica (GPDM), a collective of about twenty teachers and teacher educators in Southern Argentina who, united by a shared interest in making mathematics meaningful, relevant, and accessible to all students, have been learning about, adapting, implementing, and contributing to Realistic Mathematics Education (RME). The chapter is organised as follows. First, we outline the state of mathematics education reform in Argentina in the 1990s. Next, we describe how the GPDM was formed, how participants learned about and implemented RME in their classrooms, and how the group’s sphere of influence in Grades K–12 and in pre-service and in-service mathematics teacher education expanded from the local to the regional, the national, and the international level. We close with a reflection on what we have learned throughout this creative appropriation process. Throughout the chapter, a selection of annotated vignettes on the work of GPDM teachers and their students illustrate the manner in which the legacy of Hans Freudenthal materialised and continues to materialise in Argentinean classrooms.