139
b) Political Concerns
In the next extract Ml takes account of both Maths and Science and
applies political
perspectives more widely to the curriculum.
School B 30.10.81 P13 mi
Ml It’s very hard in teaching mathematics for
someone who’s socially and politically cons-
cious, it’s hard to teach it in the way you’d
like to teach it - like science, it’s often
taught very badly because it’s seen as a
neutral thing .....
The divorce of political and educational concernsz- so much a feature
of English education recurs throughout the analysis of these trans-
cripts. The nature of the recurrence underlines the importance of
approaching educational issues which are at once political and social
in contexts where there is unlikely to be a consensus either of
direction or of ways of looking. The school group and method group
create distinct possibilities, for in the latter there are many pres-
sures towards consensus which are hard to break as was illustrated
in the Research Group.
Is it harder for the teacher of Mathematics
than say the teacher of Himanities or Social studies or what are
the social
implications of the teaching of Mathematics compared with
say, RE? What happens when schools explicitly try to relate curri-
cular knowledge to pupils’ social experience as in social or community
education?
In several of the
schools such work is underway or under
discussion
and later student
teachers will be seen taking part in
this.
The
point to make here
is that teacher education has to equip
all its teachers for such debate otherwise
expertise will become
the prerogative of particular groups. Should this be the case such