ABSTRACT

As I said at the beginning of this book, the initial motivation for my study was to explore some possible causes of the unsatisfactory mathematics achievement of U.S. students in contrast to their counterparts in some Asian countries. In concluding, I would like to return to my original concern about the mathematics education of children in the United States. Having considered teachers’ knowledge of school mathematics in depth, I suggest that to improve mathematics education for students, an important action that should be taken is improving the quality of their teachers’ knowledge of school mathematics,

Although the intent of my study was not to evaluate U.S. and Chinese teachers’ mathematical knowledge, it has revealed some important differences in their knowledge of school mathematics. It does not seem to be an accident that not one of a group of above average U.S. teachers displayed a profound understanding of elementary mathematics. In fact, the knowledge gap between the U.S. and Chinese teachers parallels the learning gap between U.S. and Chinese students revealed by other scholars (Stevenson et al., 1990; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). Given that the parallel of the two gaps is not mere coincidence, it follows that while we want to work on improving students’ mathematics education, we also need to improve their teachers’ knowledge of school mathematics. As indicated in the introduction, the quality of teacher subject matter knowledge directly affects student learning-and it can be immediately addressed.