The widespread dissatisfaction with the teaching of mathematics has been an issue since the 1960s. A review of the New Deal Policy that has been established in 1966 advocates for a change in the teaching of mathematics from the rote, didactic, traditional pedagogy to constructivist methods of teaching and learning.

Similarly, in 1981, after an evaluation on the education system in Jamaica, Everard Barrett asked the following questions:

• Do trained teachers believe that the high rate of failure in and fear of mathematics is normal?

• Are the pedagogical strategies offered at the teacher training centres and The University of the West Indies effective?

In addition to this, over the years, Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) reports have continued to highlight the issues with the teaching of mathematics. Although several initiatives to remedy the problem have been put in place, the final study done in 2013 on the teacher education programme in Jamaica provides evidence that the problem has remained the same for over 50 years. Further, a 2013 study by Tameka Benjamin on a bachelor of education programme in Jamaica reveals that student teachers at the end of teacher training do not have the requisite knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the mathematics classroom.

Several iterations

Since the 1960s the teacher education programmes in Jamaica have gone through several changes with the hope to better prepare teachers for the classroom. The changes included an extension of the initial training time, increased entry level requirement for teacher candidates, and higher required qualification of teacher educators.

The final reform on teacher education for teachers’ colleges of Jamaica was within the last seven years. With this all these preparation colleges were upgraded from diploma-granting to degree-granting institutions. Yet, this reform seems to have yielded little fruit in improving the outcome of teacher preparation. Currently, further reform that is being done in these teacher-training institutions to ensure that the country produces better teachers of mathematics is to increase the number of mathematics courses that student teachers are required to take. For example, a teacher who is being prepared to teach early childhood is now required to take an algebra and problem-solving course that is focused on addressing the current high school curriculum (grades 7-11). Likewise, further reform within the primary programme will require student teachers to take an additional mathematics course — number connection one — a course that was initially done only by student teachers who were being trained to become primary school mathematics specialists. This course addresses aspects of the advanced mathematics content.

Do we really believe this is the solution to increase student teachers’ knowledge of the content they will teach?

Towards a solution

While I can agree that teachers need to know more than what they teach, do we actually believe that early childhood teachers need to master the high school curriculum to effectively teach mathematics to early childhood level. Similarly, do we really believe that to effectively teach the primary curriculum a teacher needs to master the advanced mathematics content? In fact current studies on the issue show that unless the content that is taught at a higher level than what teachers are required to teach can help to explain more explicitly the content that is being taught then such content is deemed as irrelevant to teacher candidates’ professional development.

Dumma Mapolelo and Mojeed Akinsola (2015) further argue that the solution to increase student teachers’ subject matter knowledge is not asking them to take more mathematics courses, but rather the solution must include having student teachers learn the content they need to teach in a very rigorous way.

An analysis of the content of the teacher education programme in Singapore — a country that is preparing high quality mathematics teachers — reveals that teacher candidates in that country are only required to take content courses that address the primary school curriculum in the country along with methodology courses that address how the primary school content is to be taught to schoolchildren.

It therefore seems reasonable to believe that if, as a country, we want to prepare teachers with the knowledge they need to teach primary mathematics content then the relevant requirements are to have student teachers develop a deep understanding of the content they must teach as well as to have them be exposed to the best practices for teaching the content.

I certainly love how Jerome Brunner (1960) puts it: “There is much to learn as a teacher, but the time for teacher preparation is short, so what is critical is that we figure out what is most relevant for student teachers to be successful in the classroom and have them master those.”

Avalloy McCarthy-Curvin is an assistant lecturer in mathematics at the School of Education, The University of the West Indies. Send comments to the Observer or avalloymccarthy6@yahoo.com.