This book is about the unique, sophisticated, and rigorous study of mathematics in Latin America developed over centuries of cultural exchange between Europe, North, and South America. More specifically, the book explores the tradition of mathematical modelling, introduced a century ago. This modelling was adapted to assist members of distinct communities to draw information about their own realities through the elaboration of representations, which generate mathematical knowledge that deals with creativity and invention. The book provides empirical evidence that a category of mathematical modelling developed in Latin America assesses the horizontal and reciprocal relations between mathematics (school/non-school contexts) and the real world. These relations provide an epistemological and ontological change, where mathematical knowledge of the others is recognized on a horizontal plane. Further, they oblige mathematics teachers and students to understand as a community of knowledge that builds their own mathematical categories of their environment governed by the reciprocal relationships between academic knowledge and functional knowledge. The dimensions of the relationships make up a frame of reference that guides educational change in mathematics. The book presents an inquiry-based approach of three Latin American modelling programs: ethnomodelling, transversality of knowledge, and reasoned decision-making. Each one, with its respective theoretical and methodological foundations related to ethnomathematics and mathematical modelling, socioepistemology, and the attribution of meaning to learning. Undoubtedly, the three mathematical modelling programs, independently, provide educational gains, each with its levels of specificity and loyal to its philosophical, theoretical, and methodological principles. However, the book places them together, organized by axes, to define a corpus of mathematical knowledge that envisions profound educational change through the development of different approaches of mathematical modelling. The authors of the 18 chapters in this book, who represent the diversity of Latin America, are from eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, and Mexico. They were invited to share their ideas, perspectives, and discuss investigations that represent a rich sample of three Latin American perspectives on mathematical modelling.

Como consecuencia de la actual crisis en educación, la gente está empezando a darse cuenta de que las escuelas abarcan mucho más que la provisión de conocimientos y aptitudes a los niños. Las escuelas son comunidades y, como todas las comunidades, puede ser o no saludables. Renovación escolar aborda los problemas y desafíos de una comunidad escolar. Mediante el empleo de cuentos, mitos y la experiencia personal de la educación Waldorf, Torin Finser describe la forma en la que tanto maestros como padres afrontan problemas cotidianos como el agotamiento, los conflictos interpersonales y las trampas de la rutina. Lo más importante es que el autor hace hincapié en que una comunidad educativa debe llegar a un acuerdo con las numerosas dimensiones ocultas de cada individuo. Muestra cómo se pueden cultivar y alimentar estos aspectos poco entendidos de la mente con el fin de mantener viva la escuela y la educación. Renovación escolar no ofrece fórmulas ni soluciones chapuceras. En su lugar, anima a una nueva manera de pensar acerca de la educación y el crecimiento personal (para los niños y los adultos que se preocupan por ellos). «…si se me pudiese conceder un deseo en nombre de la renovación escolar, pediría una mejora significativa en la calidad del sueño de padres y maestros. Ningún otro cambio tiene un potencial más beneficioso que el de eliminar el estado de agotamiento crónico que se produce a final de semana en la mayoría de escuelas».

This Open Access book is an excellent synthesis of the initial and continuing preparation for Mathematics Teaching in Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, from which comparative analyses can be made that show similarities and differences, and highlight various perspectives. In August 2012, a workshop of the Capacity and Networking Project (CANP) of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) was held in Costa Rica. This CANP brought together for two weeks a group of 66 Mathematics educators, mathematicians, university administrators, and elementary and secondary teachers from Colombia, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Panamá and Costa Rica. The goal was to promote progress in Mathematics Education in the region; as such it was a unique experience in the region. One of the most important results of this event was the creation of the Mathematics Education Network of Central America and the Caribbean (REDUMATE). It was organized by persons associated with the Mathematics Education Reform Project in Costa Rica (responsible for the most outstanding and innovative curriculum reform in Latin America) and the Inter-American Committee on Mathematics Education (IACME), which is an official regional multinational organization affiliate of ICMI. This book brings to the international Educational Community an important collection of experiences and ideas in the Mathematics Education of four countries of a region within the heart of the American continent, a region that has been many times forgotten. The dissemination of these results can promote the search for international collaborative actions in a wider scale.