Beyond Being Told Not to Tell

Abstract

For the past several years, we have been developing and studying teaching practices through our own efforts to teach school mathematics. Ball's work has been at the elementary level, in third grade, and Chazan's at the secondary level, grade ten and above, in Algebra I. In our teaching, we have been attempting, among other things, to create opportunities for classroom discussions of the kinds envisioned in the US National Council for Teachers of Mathematics Standards (NCTM, 1989, 1991). At the same time, we have been exploring the complexities of such practice. By using our teaching as a site for research into, and as a source for formulating a critique of, what it takes to teach in the ways reformers promote, we have access to a particular 'insider' sense of the teacher's purposes and reasoning, beyond that which a researcher might have. [1] This article originated with frustration at current math education discourse about the teacher's role in discussion-