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Conclusions on Mathematics Education from 1945 to 1998 |
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It's rather difficult to say just how much has really changed in the last half decade of math education. While attempts to progress and apply innovations to the field have been frequent, they have been met with only partial success. The elementary teacher's lack of foundation in math has surely impeded the advancement of math education, and future directions in mathematics should bear this in mind. |
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The history of math education reflects this slow pace of change. While math educators have recognized new directions in mathematics as having to be palatable for the classroom teacher, meaningful approaches to this end were slow in developing. Even through shifts in math education thinking, our interviews are demonstrative of the fact that teachers always approach the subject matter from their own perspective. Often this frame of reference for mathematics emerged from the teachers' personal experiences as students. |
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Textbooks have also shown the progression of math education, often lending themselves to pedagogical practice, becoming profoundly valuable teachers' aids. With greater demands on teachers to teach more complicated and conceptual mathematics, however, the textbook as the panacea for teachers is a remnant of a bygone era. The future for elementary math teachers, then, is unclear. |
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It seems that curriculum is one of the few areas that fails to recognize some teachers' difficulties with mathematics. The new demanding math curriculum, with a lack of supplementary documentation and in-service support may very well meet the same end as other curricula, where lofty objectives are never fully realized. Perhaps future math educators will heed the warnings of history, and focus on mathematics for elementary teachers in a new way, where teachers will be able to teach with comfort, and students able to learn to meet the expectations of the coming age. |
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