ABSTRACT

THE DEVELOPING OF A MATHEMATICS TEACHER – An Analysis in

Context

Hriday Kant Dewan,

Educational Advisor,
Vidya Bhawan Society, Udaipur (Raj.)
E-mail: [email protected], hardy.dewan@gmailcom

The importance of mathematics as a subject for the elementary school has been felt for a long
time. The idea of what mathematics to teach has been contentitious. The Nai Talim emphasized
language and mathematics as the basic core of the school program. Subsequently the Kothari
Commission in its report emphasised mathematics as essential for national development. The
education in science and engineering was dependent on mathematics. The National policy on
education 1986 and its subsequent revisions also emphasised mathematics but the focus in these
for mathematics was to develop the capability of using mathematics in daily life and through its
applications in to other areas. The understanding of mathematics teaching for improving day to
day usage and the capability to handle it in other subjects was the core concerns inn NCF 2000 as
well, which also emphasised the need to develop capability of doing mathematics calculations.
The NCF 2005 made a break from this and emphasised developing capability to abstract, use and
understand logical forms, grasp ideas and discover, create as well as appreciate patterns. The idea
of mathematisation and giving learners the space to discover the way mathematics functions was
an important change in the NCF 2005 formulation. It also urged focus on developing concepts and
learners' own ways of solving problems and building new algorithms rather than remembering
short cuts and efficient ways to calculate.
Mathematics education has grown to be a matter of concern over the last decade. There has been
an acknowledgement of the fact that in the effort to make education universal and accessible to all
with quality, mathematics comes up as a big challenge. The concern for mathematics and analysis
of the reasons why all children are not able to learn it has been involved. It has included concerns
about the way people think about it, the curriculum of it, the way classrooms are and other things.
One of the central pieces that emerges from this analysis is the need for teacher development for
mathematics.
The present paper analyses the requirement from a mathematics teacher as emerging from the
recent explorations in to mathematics teaching learning. The paper examines the teacher
development programmes for mathematics teachers in India. While the paper also considers the
pre-service preparation of the mathematics teachers and the nature of courses for them, it focuses
on in-service teacher development processes and analyses some key aspects. It traces the macro
in-service teacher development programs and how the have developed over time. Starting with the
programs developed by the NCERT and conducted by the SCERT's to the programmes under the
MLL drive, the DPEP and the SSA efforts. The experience of the organisations in developing
processes for teacher capability building in mathematics is examined in the light of the
requirements. These are compared with the curricular, pedagogic, attitudinal, cognitive and
conceptual capabilities required for the mathematics teachers keeping in mind the current
understanding and the context.
The paper looks at this and some other recent efforts and look at their limitations. It considers the
various modes available and the resources required for them. It points out the need for a plan for
comprehensive teacher development of mathematics teachers and an effort for engaging with the
view about mathematics and its learning not only among the teachers but also among other people
as well. The paper is based a lot on the experience of the author and is limited by the lack of
adequate documentation of the earlier efforts and their analysis.

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 THE DEVELOPING OF A MATHEMATICS TEACHER – An Analysis in
Context

Whatever we know about teacher development in mathematics is limited by the

extent of documentation on the programmes developed and implemented across the
country. We are talking about mathematics education in a context where all students have
to learn mathematics at least upto class 10. It is not a subject that only a few need to learn.
In the last two decades the emphasis on ensuring that everybody be in school and learning
has led to serious questions about the nature of mathematics teaching and the
requirements of teacher development for mathematics teaching. Among many other
issues one of the contentious points has been teaching mathematics for its own sake and
for developing in the learners abilities for mathemitization and to extend their thinking.
This is in addition to ensure the learning of mathematics because it is useful in daily life.
(1,2,3)

This paper explores various dimensions of teacher development for maths

teaching. We broadly look at three questions. The first is (i) What it means? (ii) What has
it been so far? (iii) What is the way forward?
What does teacher development in mathematics means:
Teacher development for mathematics can be examined in certain specific strands.
These include capacity building related to cognitive development that is specific to
mathematics. This would require (i) conceptual development so that the teachers have
confidence in the concepts that they are getting students to engage with, development of
abilities to follow and construct logical statements, ability to recognize patterns and to
create patterns while exploring numbers and space, the ability to solve problems and
thinking about new problems for students to work with. (ii) Apart from this it requires an
ability to abstract, deal with abstractions and visualisation including coping with
projecting and mapping, estimating etc. (iii) It is important that the teachers are also
capable of absorbing ideas and finding mechanisms to not only explain them but more
importantly to get children to engage with those concepts in an interesting and
meaningful manner.
The cognitive aspects therefore includes understanding of the concepts, the
abilities that help in understanding and developing mathematics as well as the capability
to translate them into classroom processes that are engaging for the children.
The second area is that of social sensitization. This includes understanding the
background of children, their concerns and constraints, recognizing that each child is
capable within the contexts of her experience and has the ability to abstract. The teacher
needs knowledge and has to have the competence to use what the child has in a
meaningful manner to promote her understanding. Teachers need the conviction that all
children can learn mathematics and difference in socio-economic and cultural background
does not make a difference to ability. It also does not make a difference whether they are

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boys or girls. It is important that the teachers recognize that the expectations of children
and parents from the school may be different from what the teachers and the schools are
aware of. The most critical part of the social sensitization is the realization that each child
has something to contribute to the classrooms.
The third aspect relates to the attitude and belief about mathematics and its
learning. The critical elements in this include, while not undermining the importance of
mathematics, the ability to appreciate that it is not the only thing that the child needs to
learn. It is not the most important thing either and those who learn mathematics better are
not inherently superior to the other children. The teacher must not be afraid of
mathematics and should enjoy and engage with the learning and doing of mathematics.
These are critical because unless the teacher enjoy doing mathematics and is not afraid of
it, there is no way her students would be confident to explore new ideas and make an
attempt to learn new things in mathematics.
Conversations with teacher educators as well as administrators in education
suggest that there is widespread belief that children from backward communities and
weaker sections of society are not able to learn mathematics. They have inherent
disability in learning it. Studies across different States have indicated that the teachers
also have very strong views and apprehensions. They feel that the children who come
from disadvantaged background, do not have the preparation and cultural attitude to
education. It is thus not possible for them to learn mathematics. Inspite of large
campaigns and discussions in various orientation programmes a large number of teachers
continue to believe that it is not easy for girls to learn mathematics and that even though
girls are hard working their capability of learning mathematics is limited. The other major
challenge is the belief that mathematics is intrinsically difficult and only the most capable
can learn it. There are various terms used for mathematics that include, "it is the perfect
science," "if somebody can learn mathematics, he can learn anything" etc. The teachers
and the entire system is imbued with the feeling that mathematics learning is only for the
exceptional. For the rest, if they are able to learn a few rules, algorithm and facts that
would be useful for them it is sufficient. The teachers, therefore, work towards helping
children prepare for the examination by engaging with limited ideas and placing an
emphasis on short-cuts.
The mathematics community is also afraid of mathematics and does not feel
empowered to explore new ideas in it. Teachers of mathematics feel a lack of confidence
in opening out conversations and tasks in the classrooms. The experiences of students of
mathematics and conversations with teachers of mathematics suggest that their attitude to
mathematics is that of reverence and formality rather that of intimacy and ease.
When we consider teacher development therefore two critical requirements from
mathematics teachers are (i) The confidence that mathematics is learnable. This would
have several elements inside but basically the confidence that anyone can learn
mathematics. Mathematics is not something for the special and is not something that

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needs to be obtuse and complex. It would also include the appreciation that while
everybody can learn mathematics they do not learn it in the same manner and therefore
we may need to allow different learners to follow different paths. The confidence that
mathematics is learnable would also suggest to the teacher that given patience the
students would workout their own ways and become capable of articulating their own
understanding. They do not need to be given short-cuts and solutions but encouraged to
follow their own path of learning.
The second important strand is of confidence in her own ability. In order that the
teacher is able to encourage students, be able to give them space for thinking and have the
patience to understand the approach that the students are taking the teacher needs to have
confidence in her own capability. She needs to have the confidence to explore concepts,
be able to appreciate the variety of dimensions that the concepts can have and not
planning into restricting discussions to the solutions that she knows. The confidence of
the teacher is an essential element in making open conversations and engagement possible
in the classrooms.
The programme of teacher capacity building on mathematics, therefore, requires
preparations in mathematics and its teaching. The program must include ideas built
around nature of mathematics, understanding concepts and what constitutes knowledge in
it, knowing about mathematics teaching in the sense of what is it that the child should
learn.
As we have the nature of mathematics is different from that of science as well as
other disciplines. It involves idealised and abstract content with substantial amount of
logic and deducing of new relationships from definitions or previously known
relationships. It also includes using these relationships to create new contexts and use
them in a given context. This would require pedagogy that gives children the opportunity
to engage with tasks of this nature. They must use logic, construct new relationships and
create new patterns. They must be allowed to discover and prove known relationships,
unlike in other disciplines, verifications and empirical evidence or data cannot be the
epistemic root of knowledge in mathematics. It is evident that all these have implications
in the kind of pedagogy that would be suitable for teaching of mathematics.
One of the key elements required by the teacher, therefore, is an understanding of
the kind of tasks that are needed to engage learners at different stages and in different
content areas. She needs to understand the content and recognize what would constitute
learning in that area. She must be able to create new tasks and appreciate the way the
curriculum, the content and the textbook is structured. The teacher must recognize that
mathematics teaching is not about learning short-cuts, memorising definitions or formulas
but about discovering patterns and relationships, constructing and understanding logic,
being able to deal with concepts and use all of this to solve and create problems that are
not trivial.

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 The teacher must also understand that mathematics is not learnt by telling,
explaining or by giving solutions. Its nature necessitates that the teaching learning
principles followed must include articulations, explorations and dialogue between the
teacher and the students, the textbook and the students and allowance for the children to
use their own words in articulating their understanding and for that sufficient occasions
need to be created. They must be prepared to not only deal with the abstract ideas
autonomously but also learn to struggle with new problems and find ways to solve them.
One important point to remember here is that while concrete representations of
mathematical ideas can be useful and functioning as scaffolding for children to learn at an
early stage, they have to be removed and the students not allowed to become dependent
on these. The goal has to be also deal with abstract ideas in new contexts.
Teachers as Learners:
When we talk about teacher preparations we need to recognise that molding of
teachers would require an understanding of their knowledge, beliefs and capabilities.
Being adults, the way learning for them can be organised has to be different from
children. We also need to recognise that they have experiences and logically worked out
choices for what they will do in the classrooms. They have their own fears and anxieties
as well as prejudices that would affect their learning. The experience with teachers in
respect of preparing them for teaching mathematics shows that their views of
mathematics are limited by what they have come across. They lack confidence in their
own understanding and therefore are unable to be flexible and open about discussions.
The extent of their ability to struggle with new problems is limited and feel the need for
being immediately told the solutions.
They do not seem to be able to appreciate that children come from different
backgrounds and therefore would have different ways of articulating their concepts. In
their descriptions of good classrooms, the things that emerge clearly is the need for the
teacher to be sound in mathematics and being able to explain to the students clearly. In
response to difficulties of children, their concern is that inspite of repeating the solutions
many times children fail to understand. They do not know why children do not
understand except that they do not work or they do not have background at home to learn.
They do not recognize the need for dialogue in the classrooms and for listening to the
children and their answers. The hurry is to get students to articulate correct answers as
quickly as possible and not wait for the struggling attempts of students to formulate their
logic. Because of their lack of confidence in the subject they do not appreciate the
processes that a struggling learner may go through. They are not open to the effort that
the learner is trying to make and incapable of scaffolding thinking process of learners.
To summarize;
(a) The need for teacher development therefore includes the components of
knowledge of mathematics. This as has been pointed includes not just

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 understanding of the concepts involved but also an appreciation of the
nature of the discipline and its specific nuances.
(a) The second aspect that they need to know about is the need for children to
learn mathematics. Why should children learn mathematics and within that
what mathematics they need to learn. This, of course, is effected by the
understanding that the teacher has of the above.
(c) The third aspect that the teacher needs to know is about the learners. Who
are the learner, what are their strengths and appreciate their experiences
and their capability to learn?
(d) The fourth aspect is understanding how mathematics needs to be
transacted and engaged with keeping in mind the above.
(e) The attitudes that are carried are also crucial. They are related to the above
four areas but is also independently directed. These attitudes (prejudices)
include their notions about mathematics, its nature, children and their
background and learning capability, the classroom processes and what the
purpose of education including of mathematics education can be and
should be.
(f) The teachers need patience to use all these and feel responsible for
ensuring that a substantive effort is made to ensure that children learn.
Given the fact that these are things for teachers of mathematics and that the
process of teacher development needs to include these elements. We need to look at what
has been the process of teacher development for mathematics teachers so far.
What has the process been:
Teacher preparation can be broadly divided into two components. The pre-service
teacher preparation and the subsequent in-service development of teachers. The pre-
service preparation includes the degree or certificate in mathematics and the pre-service
teacher training.
The mathematics teacher can either be a graduate or post-graduate of mathematics
or class 12 from the school. The preparation to become a certified teacher requires them
to either go through one year B.Ed. programme or a two year Diploma in Education
programme. Only graduates and post graduates are eligible for the B.Ed. programme. The
two year D.Ed. programme requires a minimum of class XII. The school programme has
in all cases mathematics compulsory upto class 10 and subsequently only a very small
proportion of students take up mathematics in the senior classes. The two year D.Ed.
programme also has some mathematics components besides the methodology component.
We are all aware of the way school examinations are conducted and the limitations that
they have in assessing and hence encouraging the child understand the concepts embeded
and the conceptual structure of the subject. Most would be teachers who join the D.Ed.

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programme have done mathematics upto class 10 but have no confidence in their own
ability to learn further mathematics or autonomously solve new problems in mathematics.
Even the graduates and post-graduates would largely have done mathematics upto
class 10. Some of them could have done mathematics upto class 12. The number who do
mathematics upto class 12 is small and those who had mathematics at the graduation or
post-graduation level is a very-very tiny fraction. The nature of the university degree is,
however, not very different from the school leaving certificate and therefore the
capability of even these teachers would be generally limited. The graduate and post-
graduate mathematics programmes do not give the learner any confidence in the subject
leaving them prey to emphasising mathematics being a set of limited problems that have
been already solved. The discourse among those who consider themselves good in maths
is of showing off their skills at coming up with problems that they know solutions to and
are not known to the others present. The challenge is not in creating problems that cannot
be solved by using known principles but in creating problems that can only be solved
with a known trick. The lack of confidence and attitude to maths and learning makes
them, as school teachers or as college teachers, shun dialogue in the classrooms.
A limitation of the university programmes is that there is no attempt in them to
make the learners explain concepts or algorithms that they use in mathematics in their
own words. The university degree or the school programme does not enable them to
express their ideas and to struggle with visualising how others would be treating a
concept. The assessment and classroom process expect them to present known solutions
and non only give little opportunity to express their ideas or construct explanations of any
kind but rather discourages it. They look for standard and organised language. It would
have been useful if the university programme linked the learning of concepts to learning
to teach it as well. It should demand from the student an exposition of how she would like
to teach some concepts. There have been a few integrated programmes where learning to
teach has been included as part of the development of the conceptual structures but even
here the linkage has been comparatively superficial. It is almost as if two programmes of
graduation and subsequent teacher trainings are put together without really mixing them
properly.
These courses, however, have never been popular and therefore have not included
any significant effort to improve them. They were never accepted by universities and
remained confined to NCERT and its institutions. Given the effort required for doing for
this 4 year course and the coordination problems with universities, these were stopped by
the NCERT for some time and have only recently been restarted in some places. The
NCERT is also contemplating a new 2 year B.Ed. programme. In one RIE an integrated 5
year programme for preparing mathematics teachers is functioning.
The pre-service teacher training programme includes as has been said above the
D.Ed. and the B.Ed. programmes. D.Ed. programme has one or two papers of content and
pedagogy of mathematics. They include some content and some amount of how to teach.

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The amount to be covered in these two papers is fairly large and there is no clarity in
terms of how this would be transacted and what would be assessed. As a result,
mathematics even here is taught as it is taught in schools and in degree colleges. The
students merely learn to remember some known solutions and do not acquire the
confidence of doing mathematics.
The B.Ed. programme is worse as it has no component of the student-teacher
learning mathematics and is focussed only on methodology of classroom teaching. This
implies that B.Ed. programme does not even give the opportunity that the D.Ed.
programme does.
The graduates who have done B.Ed. can teach upto class 10. Normally the
subjects allocated to the teacher are linked to what she has studied in her college
programme but given the distribution of teachers even that is not always possible.
Not only the teachers but the teacher educators themselves lack confidence in
mathematics. Many do not have a mathematics degree and as Prof. G. Ravindra, Former
Director of NCERT pointed out in his paper presented in the National Seminar on the
History and Cultural Aspects of Mathematics Education held on 2-3 December, 2011.
"There is a huge gap between prescription and practice of mathematics
curriculum. The teacher training colleges in India prepare
mathematics teachers, and paradoxically many of teacher training
colleges do not have teacher educators with mathematics as a subject
at their degree level or real experience of teaching mathematics at
school level. Many of the teachers do not distinguish between teaching
of mathematics and teaching of science. Many of them at secondary
level do not understand mathematics."
The current reality is that pre-service the preparation is disjunct from the in-
service education and there is no continuity between them. There is no support to teacher
to build her capability and confidence patiently and systematically. There is a pressure to
do and finish trainings of a large number of teachers and the emphasis is on finish
numbers rather effectively engage with as many as is possible. The in-service
programmes keep responding only to educational rhetoric such as ‘child centred
approaches’, ‘constructivism’ without being able to read real classroom issues of
mathematics teachers.
The second aspect of teacher preparation is in-service training. There have been
many attempts in the last 40 years to support teachers in their endeavour to teach
mathematics through intermittent programmes. While the initial effort of institutions was
to build capacity to get untrained teachers to receive pre-service training. In the last 4
decades some efforts to initiate in-service programmes has been made. These
programmes include the two programmes initiated at the national level called PMOST
programme and the SOPT programme in the 80s.
The emphasis in these was, however, on methodology and how to teach in the
classrooms. There was no content of or about mathematics. The programmes focussed on

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using materials in the classrooms and in the total programme of 7 days in the SOPT there
were 3 sessions on mathematics. The SOPT also saw beginning of idea of Minimum
Levels of Learning (MLL) in education and was further intensified by the 1991 report of
Minimum Levels of Learning published by the MHRD. The document looked at learning
in separate small chunks and considered that each of these chunks could be mastered
separately by repeated practice. The SOPT and subsequent MLL based trainings looked at
training as the forum to merely give teachers activities and materials they could use in the
classrooms.
The modules included detailed descriptions of what kind of activities could be
done with children. Modules assumed that children have similar views and follow similar
ways of learning and therefore suggested how an activity will proceed with group of
children. The emphasis in all this was on activity and use of materials. The three attempts,
therefore, the PMOST, SOPT and the MLL focussed on giving teachers example of using
materials and of how to teach. The key words were hard spots, MLL and competencies
including assessment, diagnostic and remedy as well as activities, modules and
demonstrations. These do not include most of the elements that we have discussed above
as necessary for making a good classroom.
These efforts were followed by the capacity building programmes under the
District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and other such projects supported by
many multi-lateral partnerships. The trainings in these focused around joyful learning and
presentation of activities to teachers. The orientations were marked by an attempt to build
games and other interesting devices into classrooms without necessarily looking at the
nature of the concepts to be transacted or the nature of mathematics. As a result, the
activities constructed involved a lot of movement, singing and use of materials but there
was no significant inclusion of relating this to conceptual development in mathematics.
The time on tasks related to mathematics was comparatively much smaller than the total
time required for the activity and most of the effort was spent on ensuring that children
had fun. For the teachers and people working on these activities there appear to be a
separation between activities and joy in relationship to teaching. The feeling was that in
the activities were to introduce children to the subject in a pleasant and surreptitious
manner before the harness of the reality of learning concepts in it. The DPEP extended
into SSA and now to RMSA. The basic transaction has remained focused around activity
materials and how to explain concepts. The effort has been to make mathematics concrete
and focussed on mathematics lab and verifications of theorems and reductions. The fact
that the manipulations of concrete materials do not lead to a proof, seem to be ignored
and temporarily representation devices to introduce concepts have became entire gamut
of mathematical ideas. There is very little effort to help teachers understand the concepts
and no programme for their own conceptual development in mathematics.
The Challenges:
In order to coherently address capacity building of mathematics teachers the first
important element is a common view of mathematics. At the moment a variety of views
and differences in emphasis exist. The contesting views suggest very different
programmes of mathematics for schools and for teacher development. The curriculum
documents from 1986 to 2005 have explored the issue of purpose of mathematics

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teaching as well as the issue of what mathematics is to be taught in the schools. In these
the nature of mathematics is specified differently. One strand that runs throughout and is
considered important is the need to relate mathematics to experience and use in daily life.
The understanding is that if mathematics is to be found purposeful it must add the ability
of the child to improve her ability to survive and relate to the world. The implication is
that for her to understand concepts it must be relevant and useful in her life.
While the increased emphasis to make mathematics relate to daily life is a good
idea but in the context of thinking about the mathematics programme it cannot be at the
cost of undermining the requirement of developing abstractions, visualisation pattern,
creation and other such abilities that form an essential component of the ability to
mathematize. We need to look at the understanding of teachers on these issues and build
their capacity to understand and work with mathematics.
There is lack of inherent appreciation that mathematics deals with abstract entities
and it is important for the learner to go through concrete representations before she
engages with abstractions is striking. All programs are caught in the bind of the emphasis
on concrete manipulables and preparing teachers to use them. In course of time, this view
has consolidated to the need for a lot of materials and methods including the maths lab in
the classrooms and a focus on demonstrating and verifying principles as well as proofs.
The other view of mathematics recognises mathematics as abstract and looks at
use of experience relationships to daily life and usefulness in life merely as devices to
engage learners and to apply the concepts. It emphasizes the development and mind
including abilities to logically argue, visualise, see patterns, constructs proofs and
engages with abstract entities as basic to the mathematics programme. It expects that
learner would use these in relationship to not only her daily life but in relations to other
concepts and ideas as well and create new ways of looking at situations as well. There is
another dimension to the perspective. That relates to whether maths is about faster
calculations or about newer logical formulations.
There are many shades and composition of views along these dimensions.
Obviously these views have overlaps but in many cases marginal. All these suggest
different capabilities and development plans for teachers.
The other challenge is the recent discourse about the importance of teachers to the
teaching-learning process and hence need for effort on their capacity building. One
growing view is that investment on teachers and teacher development is not as necessary
as providing materials to children. The voice that teachers cannot be expected to function
with responsibility and care after they appoint is gaining strength. The argument is that
the expectations from them would not be fulfilled in many cases. It is not possible for
them to be creative and design appropriate materials or strategies for children. The
argument, therefore, is that teacher must have materials that are fairly clear in the
expectations and should function as only as a mere conduit for providing these to
children. The approach to teacher development in this case would be very different.

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 The third challenge is confront the belief that students learn by being given
explanations and solutions. It is not possible for them to think of ways of solving a
problem or engage with constructing their own explanations. The approach to teacher
development in this case would also be very different. Since a large part of teachers and
educators hold this view their expectations from teacher development are very different.
The third view of the NCF position paper is that human beings are capable of
thinking, creating and dealing with new ideas, constructing solutions and abstracting from
experiences. The emphasis of the school or the teacher development programme must be
to make these possible.
In an actual classroom situation either we can exclusively choose one from among
these or create a blend given the reality of the context. This makes many choices possible
for teacher development.
The challenge of institutions and people
While there are a large number of ideas and a variety of views there are not
sufficient institutional mechanism available to help teachers build capacity in
mathematics teaching. There are a few institutions that focus on building of capacity of
mathematics teachers and there are a few educators who can ensure that children learn
mathematics. This fact that there is a lack of mathematics educators has been recognized
as serious challenge.
Challenge of materials:
The process of teacher development would require materials that give teacher
opportunity to learn. These materials need to be appropriate both in terms of what they
seek to convey as well as the way that they present the ideas. While there are materials
that are available in English there are a few available in the vernaculars. Even in English
the materials that need to be reformulated and recast so that they become relevant and
absorbing for the teachers.
There is also a gap in reaching whatever materials are available to the teachers.
There are no mechanisms available that can identify and disseminate such materials
among teachers and help them build dialogue around them.
Challenge of perceptions and attitudes:
It is important to recognize that as much as attitudes of teachers are a challenge,
the attitudes of the community also pose big challenge. These include;
(i) The challenge of fear and halo:
The fear of mathematics and the halo around mathematics is another big
challenge. This restricts the ability of children and teachers to engage with learning new
mathematics and in dealing with their own lack of understanding. Parents and others in
the community constantly add to the intensity of these feelings and beliefs. The excessive
need for formalised abstract knowledge and its correlation with the present way of
teaching maths adds to this myth. The view that it is the only form of valuable knowledge
and only bright children can learn it makes most fear its non-comprehension and makes it

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difficult for them even make an effort to engage with it to the best of their ability. The
teachers and even educators start with assumptions neither all teachers nor all children
will be able to learn mathematics. There is no serious attempt to engage with all children
with the confidence that they will learn. In most cases, teachers give up even before they
start. It is almost as if there is an attempt to exclude some learners from learning
mathematics because of the belief that mathematics is only for 'superior' people.
(ii) The challenge of engaging with "is mathematics for all?"
The other challenge is how people in general and including the media perceive
and project learning. In most situations and for most people learning is equivalent to
remembering. The LMT course of IGNOU quotes an interaction with the child where it is
evident that the child believes that she is able to solve questions in mathematics because
she has a memory. The child considers thinking to be equivalent to being able to use the
memory. This perception is so widespread that even after the NCF 2005 and so many
attempts to alter this view, most people still believe in this. So much so even the media in
its effort to sell its wares aimed at education project learning as memorisation.
Remembering and reproducing seems to be the goal and purpose of being in the school.
Two recent illustrative advertisements of achievements on television have icons like
Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble endorsing and encouraging the effort of learners are
illustrative of this memorisation. Sachin Tendulkar advertises a pen and suggests that if
you write something many times, you remember it better. Of course, you also have to
write this neatly. If you do that you can win prizes and do well in the school. The
advertisement of Anil Kumble suggests that you should use e-learning materials for better
education. To promote this he says using these would help you memorise better. This
challenge is particularly severe from mathematics as historically memorising tables and
formulae has been considered to be the most important aspects of learning mathematics.
This challenge persists and has to remain a major component of the teacher development
effort.
(iii) Teachers as role models:
It is important to recognize that the icons used to advertise educational projects
are cricketers. Apart from Dr. S. Radha Krishnan and a few others who are known
teachers are not talked about. Those who are known are actually known for their parts of
status other than that of teachers. There are no teachers who are known and can be used as
icons or role models. This is an important challenge where while we emphasise the role of
teacher in education and consider them as harbingers of change and builders of hope,
there is no respect of looking up to them. The status of the teacher has declined over the
last three decades and this also is a big challenge in transforming teachers and in making
them more responsible and confident.
The challenge of systematic decline and lack of long-term perspective:
As mentioned above there have been efforts to make some improvement in school
mathematics education processes. In the large-scale trainings the initial interactions were

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energetic and taken up with module development and preparation of the master trainers.
However, slowly the effort involved in preparation for the training, the arrangements and
quality of training declined and the participation in the trainings also became half
hearted.1
The fact that the trainings had to be done and targets covered lead to a systematic
decline in the quality of the training particularly of mathematics. The trainings in maths
require greater preparation both in terms of what and how it would be transacted but also
who would transact it. It was not possible for institutions to plan a strategy for training
and build it systematically with groups of teachers and support them subsequent to the
training so that they could become confident on what they have learnt. The thought of an
organised curriculum for mathematics teacher development could not be developed in any
State. The idea of repeated training interaction with a teacher was a part of the DPEP as
well as SSA bit it never happened in an organised manner. It could never be ensured and
it was never planned that a teacher would go through these training programs
systematically with some kind of record being maintained of what she had gone through
and what was left. Creating the possibilities of an organised structure of teacher
preparation, developing resources for it and ensuring its implementation in a phased
manner is another big challenge.
(iv) Teachers as role models:
Problem of teaching, teachers and projections.
The key points of systematic challenges that we face include the following:
- Hierarchy across levels
- lack of continuity of thought.
- lack of respect and belief.
- lack of institutional memory.
- others and the system.
- hurry and short sightedness.
- lack of dialogue and reflection.
All these together focus sharply the challenge of the content of mathematics
teacher development programme. Should it only be around methodology, providing
explanations or it should be around helping teachers understand how to engage with
concepts and abstractions. Even if we agree that it is the second, we have critical choices
to make; (i) should teacher development programme be involved taking teachers
systematically through foundational mathematics concepts or it should only be restricted
to understanding of higher mathematics. (ii) Is there any need to at all revisit simple
1
1. "Since the room was almost empty, I was hardly enthused about training. Informal talks were held with
participants. During these informal talks, nearly all teachers admitted that these training sessions were becoming
exceedingly meaningless. The teachers found them unpleasant. As I see it, there are many reasons for this. Firstly, there
is a lack of discipline in the training centres. This situation prevails everywhere from DIETs to CRS."

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concepts and if there is what should be the mechanism of engagement by the teachers.
(iii) Should the content development in mathematics be integrated with the preparation of
how to teach or it should separately organised? (iv) Should be the aspects of the
mathematics teacher development (v) What is the amount of time it would take and how
should it be organised to be meaningful and continuous. And then the big question, given
the lack of institutional structures, capable educators, appropriate materials and the
attitudes about mathematics how will this become operational.
Small Indicators:
There have been some attempts in India to promote teacher development. These
include institutional efforts of the NCERT, IGNOU and other national and State bodies as
well as efforts of non-governmental structures. These efforts have been at fairly different
scales and have diverse dimensions. The efforts by the NCERT have been the most
widespread and undertaken over longer periods. NCERT has contributed to discourse on
both pre-service and in-service efforts. These include integrated teacher development
programmes offered by the NCERT and its regional institutes of education. Some of these
likely have been focused on mathematics education to prepare teachers upto secondary
level as well. The 4 year integrated B.Ed. programme, B.Sc., B.Ed. and the 6 year
integrated M.Sc. Education (Mathematics).
The pre-service integrated program initiated as far as back in the 60s were stopped
for sometime and have been restarted. The NCERT and the RIEs conducted many in-
teacher development programmes mathematics having some content. The PMSOT and
SOPT programmes, formulated by the NCERT and conducted across the country, also
had some maths. More recently the NCERT has developed handbooks for supporting
teachers in their classrooms has conducted tele-conferencing with teachers across the
country based on the new book and relating it to the NCF 2005, it has also produced
materials for helping teachers understand assessment better and also developed modules
around hard spots. The efforts of NCERT have been extended over the 50 years and
includes many changes in directions as well. There has been a recognition that
mathematics teachers require support and capacity building but the approach of the
NCERT does not somewhat to have produced a coherent and holistic programme for
teacher development integrating pre-service and in-service efforts. It has also not been
able to develop in-service programme which looks at the teacher development and being
refreshed through learning of new ideas as well as through reflection on her experiences
and previous knowledge. The reach of the NCERT programs is also limited and does not
reach a large majority of teachers. Its relationship with the SCERTs and other State
institutions is not sufficiently dialogic and supportive to enable them to take theses
forward in an organic reflective and evolving way.
In recent years some universities have come up with and/or encouraged programs
integrating graduation with pre-service teacher preparation.

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 These have also been recommended by the NCFTE and various forums of
interaction analysing teacher development. Though encouraging these programs that
extend to years do not look at the specific issues and concerns mathematics education.
They are all inadequate to help teachers get over their fear of mathematics and
understanding fundamental concepts that they have not learnt through during their
schooling. The recent 4 year programs emphasise understanding children and their
learning process but are not still able to pay adequate attention to disciplinary confidence
in the teachers trainee. The approach of the course, however, in many ways is a huge step
forward even though the programmes in all universities do not have same quality.
The States through their SCERTs have initiated during the SSA and now through
RMSA programmes of in-service teacher development. These programmes, however are
not planned as a comprehensive development for the teachers. They are arbitrary and
sporadic and therefore seem to be dis-jointed from each other and from the experience of
teachers. While teachers seek support for their problems and issues in classrooms
including their lack of knowledge of the concepts. These trainings programmes revolve
largely around education rhetoric without concretely engaging teachers in thinking about
how this can be made possible in classrooms. 1 There are no mechanisms for supporting
teachers subsequent to the workshops and no guarantee that teacher who comes to the
workshop would come to the next workshop as well. At the level of institutions that
prepare the teacher education programme there is no continuity of modules and the
people who prepare these modules do not even look at the previous modules that have
been implemented and the kind of responses it had received.
The nature of the module and the way it is prepared as well as it is delivered also
make it difficult for even what has been included, to make any sense. The State efforts,
therefore, have been seriously afflicted by the lack of a perspective of mathematics
teacher development through in-service programmes and institutional mechanism
structures as well as lack of educators.


1?
"Today on the 13th of July, I participated in a working teacher's training session in B.R.C. Dunda.
This training session was organised for those who were not able to participate in the last training session. Thirty-two
teachers are a part of this. The subject is 'Hard spots in textbooks'. The modules of this training include many subjects –
Hindi, Maths, English, Sanskrit, Science, and Social sciences. There is only one trainer - Mr. Bisht. He is an assistant teacher
in a junior high school. He teaches Science and Maths and it seems like he is well-versed in both.
Today the session began with a discussion about recurring decimals and their conversion into fractions. The
presentation was one sided. There was no active participation on the teachers' part. The trainer explained the subject
traditionally, like a Maths teacher explains sums in class.
Sometime ago, DIET had organized an MT training. I found that the participants here were comparatively more active and
desirous of learning. They listened patiently and even reacted. If the trainer prepares a bit more and comes with his
homework done, the training can be very interesting for keen learners. Usually we just keep to the text book like traditional
primary school teachers. Here also, the MT did not dare step out of the prescribed module syllabi.
Today's session ended with a lesson on computing the Highest Common Factor (HCF) and the Lowest Common
Multiple (LCM) by factorisation as well as by the division method.
I have always been confused about words like recurring, HCF and LCM. The reason is that my students have never reached
that stage. I have never taught my students about HCF and LCM. Even in fifth class we could not go beyond
subtraction."

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 There are many open learning institutions and some of them provide opportunities
for teachers to continue for their learning. The Indira Gandhi National Open University
(IGNOU) as well as State Open Universities have courses in mathematics that can help
teachers build their knowledge of mathematics. These courses are, however, designed to
teach them higher mathematics and there are a few courses that can help teacher to revisit
school mathematics that she needs to be confident of to teach children. The IGNOU has a
certificate programme of mathematics which can be seen as example of the possibility
that such programmes can have.
Apart from this, there are many non-governmental efforts of teacher development
efforts at a small scale. These have occasionally engaged with and informed the processes
at the macro level. They have influenced both the curricular concerns and materials for
children and the way teacher development program and the discourse of teacher
development is constructed. There are a few institutions across the country that have had
different points of time worked on mathematics education including mathematics teacher
development. These institutions are however, limited by their size, the lack of sufficient
team members and a lack of recognition of their capability and intent by the mainstream
government structures. There is also a lack of institutional mechanism and administrative
rules to make this possible.
Possible modes of capacity building:
Teacher development can be in the face-to-face mode or the distance and the self-
learning mode. The mode through ICT, is a mixture of the two is also being discussed as
a possible way forward but lacks both good content and ideas as well as the infrastructure
to be possible over a larger number of teachers.
The face-to-face mode makes possible interaction with educator and can allow for
sharing of experiences, reflection of experiences, revisiting approaches and concepts, and
clarifying the notion of what is to be learnt, how it is to be learnt and what it means to
learn. A good face-to-face program can ideally also raise sharp questions on the
understanding and the belief that we carry about knowledge, about children, our biases,
about concepts and about our own capability in that discipline. It can enable the educator
to understand teacher and her start articulating her understanding and building upon it.
There can be dialogue and conversations that is rich and continues where scaffolding and
correcting can happen instantly with sensitivity.
It cannot however, give a complete development platform for the needs of
teachers. It can only start the process of thinking and pose questions to the teachers it
cannot ensure that concepts are sufficiently engaged with.
The other problem of face-to-face is in terms of people getting together, leaving
their homes and place of work, it is also limited by the number of educators who are
capable of doing such an interaction with sensitivity and competence.

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 Given the large number of teachers across the country or in a State or even in a
district and the variety of areas that the development programme needs it would require a
long list of requirements to make such a process possible. The institutional structures and
the number and kind of educators available make it impossible for all teachers.
The other mode, the distance and the self-learning mode has not been explored
seriously. Apart from IGNOU and a few NGO's there have been very few attempts to
encourage scaffolding processes and self-learning among school teachers. A well
designed program and seriously implemented distance program can have many
advantages. Given appropriate materials it can cater to the varied requirements of each
teacher and her opportunities to engage with she wants to in more details. This
programme, however, cannot initiate the learning process and raise concerns about the
need to learn in the mind of the teachers. They require purpose and motivation to begin
their learning curve. They also require during this process intermittent support and
scaffolding to pursue learning. Most have an inadequate capability to read and need
catalysing processes to generate interest and confidence to engage with written materials
and learning from them. The intermittent contact and feedback on assigned tasks is also
required to sharpen what they have learnt and analyse gaps in it.
Self-learning or distance programmes have not been tried seriously and almost no
attempt made to invest in creating facilitators who can through short face to face
interactions exciting the teachers about the need to learn and prepare them to be able to
use materials on their own to continue learning. The similar need for developing
facilitators to scaffold the learning effort of the teachers has also been neglected. The in-
service programs besides being under conceptualised ad-hoc poorly arranged are also
developed/facilitated in an uninteresting manner incompetently.
What should sessions be like?
Face-to-face interactions as a part of an orientation program or of distance and
self-learning program need to be able to excite the teachers. The sessions should reflect
modes of classroom process as we want them to understand it and the teaching-learning
process in the sprit expected. Sessions should be constructed to be sensitive to their
background with opportunities to articulate their understanding. The sessions must
demonstrate concern for their learning and respect for their knowledge. The norms
essential for good classrooms appropriately interpreted for adults need to be clearly
evident in the interaction. In terms of content the sessions can be on anything from
playing with numbers, with geometry and its relationship to geographical ideas. On place
value, on functions, variables and equations etc etc. They can be around understanding
representations and transformation, creation of and discovery of patterns and
generalization and problem forming and problem solving. The focus of the session is to
ensure that there is a sense of engaging and doing mathematics and not talking about it.
The sessions must bring about with kindness the realization that we and they can relearn
or learn. This has to be through simple mathematics and teachers need to see that we can
all help in developing mathematical ideas of others. It must help them the develop

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confidence and patience to stay with a problem rather than try and rush to find solutions
by some device. They must at the end of interaction feel confident that they can learn on
their own and must be capable of reading about mathematical ideas and about doing
mathematics.
It is clear that as we have already found that no one interaction can be sufficient in
itself to make the teacher adept and empowered with the capabilities required. Unless the
teacher engages with a variety of problems on her own, explanations and solutions
provided, cannot help in developing the ability to do more. These exercises subsequent to
the interactions must extend and challenge constructively the ability of the teacher in all
aspects. The in-service programme of teacher development therefore needs to be
comprehensively reviewed and developed as an organised effort of periodic interactions
interspersed by self-learning. The teacher must go through the series of interaction and
not come for one interaction and then come for the other next one randomly with no
linkages between the sets of interactions. This, of course, would suggest the need for
institutional structure that have a memory and ability to visualise a programme for
development of teachers of mathematics.
The other aspect of the way forward is pre-service. As pointed out pre-service
teacher preparation has the component of school or university preparation in mathematics.
There is a need to consider these courses and the way they are assessed and taught. There
is a boot strap problem here, unless we improve the quality of teachers, we cannot
improve the teaching and unless we improve quality of teaching we cannot have good
teachers. There is the need to include in all graduate programs an effort to prepare the
students to think about how to teach concepts in their subject. It is in thinking about how
to teach that the nuisances of the concepts become evident. We need to now how such
efforts can be possible and how we can restructure the university programme to include
thinking abut how to teach some concepts as integral part of the graduation. It is not
necessary that all those who go through this process will become teachers but it would
help all to have better conceptual understanding. A corollary of all this is the need to
prepare college teachers and take them also through a teacher development program that
helps them understand how to teach.
Way forward:
1. Need reformation of school and university graduate programs to bring in a focus
on understanding fundamental concepts of the discipline and its nature for
example mathematics.
2. Need reformulation of pre-service teacher training program to include the areas
indicated including in particular understanding of the background, cultural and
social processes that children face, their language, understanding the purpose of
education for the society and be aware of the purposes of students, the abilities
universal for all children and specific to the group, how children learn the subject,
what does it means to know a concept in that subject and how to assess it etc.

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3. Need materials for teachers on mathematical concepts and on teaching maths.
4. Need institutional structures and processes that make more and better prepared
educators possible.
5. Need a wider discourse on maths and issues raised here to build a discourse.
6. Need more organised and integrated thought on pre and in-service teacher
development and identification of institutions that can make all this possible.

References:

1. National Curriculum Framework (2000): National council of Education Research

and Training, New Delhi.
2. National Curriculum Framework (2005): National council of Education Research
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3. Note to the teachers, Maths Class VI, National council of Education Research and
Training, New Delhi.(2006)
4. Note to the Teachers, Maths Class VI, SCERT, Raipur, Chattisgarh. (2008)
5. Sharma Rashmi, Ramchandran Vimla (2009): The Elementary Education System
in India, Routledge, New Delhi.
6. Dewan H.K. (2010): Pedagogy of Mathematics, Learning Curve, 16, Azim Premji
Foundation, Bangalore.
7. National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education. (2009): National council
for Teacher Education, New Delhi.
8. Teacher Development and Management (2009): MHRD, New Delhi.
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11. AMT-01, Teaching of Primary School Mathematics, IGNOU, New Delhi.
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1. Dewan H.K. (2000): Does this child know any mathematics, Issues in Primary Edu-

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 cation Vol. II No. 2, Educational Consultants India Ltd. MHRD.
2. DPEP Report (2001): The DPEP Intervention in Karnataka, Vidya Bhawan Society,
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18. Dewan, H.K. (1998): Mathematics Embedded in Prashika, Unpublished.
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