Page 14 - Professorial Lecture - Prof Kasanda

not themselves know the subject well are not likely to have the knowledge
they need to help students learn this content”. The many underqualified
and unqualified teachers in our mathematics classrooms may be
contributing to poor learner performance and learner dislike of
mathematics. Baumert, Kunter, Blum, Brunner, Voss, Jordan, Klusmann,
Krauss, Neubrand, & Tsai (2010, p. 167) encourage teacher preparation
programmes to provide adequate and appropriate grade level content to
their trainee teachers so that these teachers do not “… develop only a
limited mathematical understanding of the content covered at specific
levels, (which will) have detrimental effects on PCK (Pedagogical content
Knowledge) and consequently negative effects on instructional quality and
student progress. Differences in CK (Content Knowledge) that emerge
during preservice training persist across the entire teaching career”.

UNAM is the only teacher preparation institution at the moment. In order
to provide our teachers more practice, it is in my view high time that a
practice school with real learners is established at each campus. Such a
school will prove useful in making our trainee teachers become more
confident in their teaching abilities, presentation of subject content and
classroom management. If this is not feasible, we should enter into an
understanding with a school that could be willing to have our students
there for practice on certain days in the afternoons. Nonetheless, I am
mindful of the possible difficulties this might create, but they are not
insurmountable.

WHO SHOULD LEARN MATHEMATICS?

The history of mathematics teaching and learning does refer to an era
when women and poor working class children had little access to the
study of mathematics as indicated earlier (Huff, 2011). It was reserved for
the elite of the time, who were able to afford the services of a private
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