In recent years a great deal of work on mathematical word problems has focused on efforts to bring more of ‘real life’ into the problems themselves and students’ uptake of these problems. Following on from earlier studies of the word problem as a pedagogical and literary genre, the author argues that we cannot unproblematically assume an ability to know and to represent or match ‘real life’ in word problems. The author uses the work of contemporary theorists Bakhtin, Lacan, Zizek and Baudrillard, including concepts like the chronotope, the Lacanian Real, Imaginary and Symbolic, simulacra, and impossible exchange, to argue that conditions of our postmodern world render transparent matchings of word problems with ‘real life’ unsustainable.

School mathematics instruction remains shaped by pedagogical traditions rooted in nineteenth-century industrial models that privilege static, indoor, and calculation-focused learning. Alternative possibilities for mathematical understanding emerge through embodied, arts-based, and outdoor pedagogies that engage movement, sensory experience, and the living world. Drawing on more than a decade of pedagogical design experiments with educators, preservice teachers, and students, mathematics learning is examined in campus gardens, forests, beaches, and other outdoor environments. Mathematical ideas are developed through bodily movement, artistic practice, and multisensory engagement with land, materials, and seasonal cycles, alongside more familiar forms of mathematical representation. These pedagogical experiments suggest that learning mathematics in and with the more-than-human world can deepen conceptual understanding, foster collaboration, and reconnect mathematics with its historical and ecological roots. Rather than displacing indoor classrooms or paper-and-pencil work, a more balanced mathematics curriculum is advanced—one that integrates embodied and outdoor approaches as complementary ways of knowing across STEM/STEAM education. Keywords: mathematics education, embodied learning, arts-based approaches, greater-than-human world, outdoor classrooms, dance, movement, and mathematics, mathematics and fibre arts, history of mathematics and astronomy, geometry, mathematical understanding