Lived experience of pedagogical boomerang in mathematics teaching-learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the critical life-events of the first author's journey of learning and teaching mathematics that prompted critical thinking about his past experiences as a student and teacher. It portrays a paradigmatic shift from a traditionalist thinker to a constructivist actor in the classroom from the critical life-events within and out of classroom experiences by using autoethnography as the writing and research genre by connecting his personal experiences in the social, cultural, and teaching/learning contexts of Nepal. The major themes emerged from the autoethnography were-- Thinking Narratively: Joining a School and Dropping Out; Thinking Narratively: Back to School and Dropping In; Thinking Interpretively: Dropping out of School; Thinking Poetically: Dropping in School; and Nightmare of the First Teaching: A Pedagogical Boomerang. These themes portrayed a pedagogical boomerang in learning and teaching mathematics from a remote village in Western Nepal to the neighborhood of the capital city Kathmandu.

Underachieving Students’ Mathematical Learning Experience in the Classrooms in Nepal

“…In the meantime, there is still a rigid classroom practice with disciplined and strict classroom norms. These norms are mostly guided by punitive actions of the teachers with negative reenforcement without adequate support to the students in their mathematics learning and development leading to several students to drop out the school (Rawat, 2018;Rawat et al, 2021). These issues seemed perpetuated due to lack of adequate training to the teachers to provide appropriate classroom environment (Panthi & Belbase, 2017) leading further to more inequity, lack of access to resources to several students, lack of caring and supporting environment to students from low income and marginal communities (Panthi et al, 2018).…”