Characterizing and analyzing creative and reactive insubordinations in educational designs and learning environments

Abstract

In this theoretical essay, we use ideas that emerged from an insubordinate design in Financial Mathematics Teaching to inspire ideas in different mathematics disciplines and teaching levels. We analyze the socio-critical actions classified as reactive and creative insubordinations. The idea of reactive insubordination does not mean that they are not creative ones. Instead, we consider that these ideas are inherently creative because they are an invitation to move from traditional educational environments to questioning and contextualized environments. This classification was chosen to focus on the reaction movement from established to emergent educational contexts. Also, we understand that creative insubordinations are fundamentally reactive because they represent subversion to traditional ways of teaching. However, they were classified as creative to characterize learning environments that are originally investigative and therefore, emergent and that consider real and local situations. Finally, I suggest ways to characterize these insubordinations by interweaving them with the concept of educational design elaborated by Wenger (1998) and the learning environments proposed by Skovsmose (2000), as well as analyzing how practices located in these environments may afford or constrain insubordinate actions.