In Australia we face a serious problem in that over the last twenty years the quality of students' mathematical knowledge and abilities has "deteriorated to a dangerous level" (Brown, 2009, p. 3). Too few students want to study further mathematics and are "unlikely to continue its study voluntarily" (Commonwealth of Australia, 2008) or pursue careers where high levels of mathematical proficiency are needed. In this paper I make use of the poststructuralist notion that "proficiency" is a state of being daily constituted in classroom practice to (a) at a theoretical level, rethink how it might be ignited and sustained, (b) analyse contemporary interactional strategies that commonly though unknowingly obviate expressions of proficiency and (c) through a combined psychological/poststructuralist lens, nominate three (3) tentative indicators of instructional practice necessary for students to achieve and maintain a state of being "proficient" as defined in the Australian curriculum: mathematics (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Auathority [ACARA], 2010). It is hoped that an additional, poststructuralist reading of the complexity and tenuous productivity of the learning process might interrupt commonly held assumptions that currently inform research on proficiency in mathematics.