Numeracy across the curriculum: a pathway to critical thinking

This writing seeks to identify and explore the ways in which mathematical competencies, skills and conceptual understandings underpin all the discipline areas across the mainstream primary school curriculum as numeracy competencies. It considers how these numeracy capacities can be investigated and acknowledged in each of the major areas of disciplinary study and how these foundational, embedded numeracy components can facilitate the development of critical thinking skills that are subject dominated but generic in nature. A framework is presented to illustrate the ways in which sound logic and the development of skills in various types of reasoning supports the intuitive compulsion of students to investigate diverse perspectives, assess these in relation to problem solving and decision making and evaluate their subsequent proposals in a critical manner. In this way, opportunities are provided in diverse contexts for the development of two essential skills for 21st century success: numeracy competencies and critical thinking skills.