Susan Gerofsky

Filmmakers

Susan Gerofsky

Associate Professor of Mathematics Education

University of British Columbia

Vancouver, BC, Canada

susan.gerofsky@ubc.ca

edcp.educ.ubc.ca

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Statement

Susan Gerofsky is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education and Environmental Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her interdisciplinary research in curriculum studies is in embodied mathematics education through the arts, movement, gesture and voice, as well as work in the language and genres of mathematics education, and in garden-based learning across disciplines. She is active as a poet, playwright, musician and filmmaker, and works with dance and fibre arts. You'll often find her cycling around town with a baritone horn or an accordion, or playing melodeon on a VIA Rail train across Canada.

Films

Restorying math through the arts: Secret Lantern workshops

5:00:00

Producer/ Director: Susan Gerofsky Editor: John Ha Videographers: Kaden Kwok, Reiyo Hung, Yenhao Li Workshop animators/ researchers: Cynthia Nicol, Susan Gerofsky, Anna Leung, Anita Kumari, Amy Yewon Lee Special thanks to: Naomi Singer & the Secret Lantern Society; Phil Byrne, BNSS Film and Broadcasting Program; the East Van arts community

2025

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This film documents community math-art workshops held at the Secret Lantern Society in Vancouver, Canada in the spring of 2025. The research team are mathematics educators from the University of British Columbia, and the videographers and editor are students from the Burnaby North Secondary School Film and Broadcasting Program. These workshops are part of a longer funded research project, 'Re-storying Math Through the Arts'. We aim to develop deeper understanding of ways of working with whole communities to break intergenerational cycles of fear and rejection of mathematics, and foster confidence and participation in a 'seriously playful' approach to mathematical patterning. We're working in collaborative dialogue with communities to develop shared, intriguing experiences of mathematical explorations, to help people begin to tell themselves more positive stories of their relationship with mathematics.