Answer:
I would like to first thank members of my dissertation committee for their
important parts at various stages of this dissertation journey. Yvelyne GermainMcCarthy first introduced me to the interesting possibilities of mathematics
teaching and student engagement with interdisciplinary and applied curricular
projects. I have greatly appreciated her mentoring, support, and friendship. I am
in deep admiration of the enthusiasm and tireless devotion she brings to her work
and her students, and to extending the opportunity of a first-class mathematics
education to all students. I’d also like to thank Richard Speaker for initially
introducing me to great educational thinkers, to big picture views of educational
philosophy and history, and to the important implications for teaching and learning
of finer theoretical differences. I also want to thank him for helping to reunite a
dispersed and bedraggled graduate community in the months following Hurricane
Katrina. Pat Austin also deserves my deep appreciation for her critical reading of
the initial document, for challenging me to improve some parts, for advising me in
the final stages, and for negotiating administrative obstacles. I was deeply touched
that she recognized the part of my journey that was a solo flight and that it had not
defeated but empowered me. Finally, Ivan Gill deserves many thanks for lending
his expertise in working with a student he’d never met and for raising good
questions about basic assumptions of our discipline that often go unquestioned.
I’d like to thank one other great teacher I have been fortunate to learn from,
anthropologist Eric R. Wolf. He introduced me to a new way of reading history and
Step-by-step explanation: