Training of Maths teachers

It is a pity that Professor Josef Lauri (The Sunday Times, October 17) chose to ignore the gist of my article of the previous week and tried to create an argument built on a series of misinterpretations which have compelled me to offer further clarifications.

1. I am not happy that I cannot recall off-hand some of the material I learned in the Faculty of Science.

This does not mean that I do not know what we studied and what material we covered or that I am unable to open a book and refresh my memory. It does not even mean, as Professor Lauri wanted to convey, that I am against knowledge of mathematics for mathematics teachers.

It only means that most of the content knowledge we covered with the Faculty of Science was either way above or else irrelevant to the teaching of Mathematics at SEC level and A-level to such a degree that any connections that could be made are remote. In fact, the connection that Professor Lauri suggested is far-fetched and his effort to apply it to primary and secondary education is pathetic.

It is only natural that complex knowledge is forgotten if it is irrelevant to one's daily life and studies. I doubt whether Professor Lauri himself will be able to sit for one of his own exams, after a decade or two teaching things which have nothing to do with the content of that exam, without a thorough revision of the theorems and their proofs.

2. I do not know how Professor Lauri got the idea that, according to me, "a teacher does not need to know much more than what is actually taught in schools". Perhaps his notion of knowledge is limited to the content involved in the subject itself, in which case his assumption is definitely not true. All teachers know that it pays to enrich themselves in the subject matter, as long as it is going to be relevant to their teaching.

But there are other forms of knowledge. Teachers and lecturers should also equip themselves with knowledge of research studies in education which help them understand more the difficulties the students encounter when learning a particular subject.

There are a multitude of theories in education, even in mathematics education, which guide the teachers through the task of developing and organising the intelligence of each and every student. Which is a shame. Teaching is much, much more than knowing something and saying it to others.

3. I am sure Professor Lauri knew which department I was referring to when I mentioned the hard work done by lecturers in the Department of Mathematics in the Faculty of Education. The whole name is: Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technical Education.

4. Finally, it is not by my own reckoning that I have taught Mathematics successfully. If marks are an indication, it may be interesting for Professor Lauri to know that all my last fifth-formers passed SEC with 1-5 grades and 62 per cent of them got grade 1 or 2. But the real reckoning comes from the positive comments of students and their parents. One such comment, which boosts my enthusiasm for teaching the subject, is that with my help a student has come to love Mathematics.