[Dr. Frank fan]

There is an ongoing percentage of teachers who continually want to "revise" mathematics and who are constantly seeking "new" approaches for teaching mathematics, such as in this program.

The reason for this is that these teachers don't like the subject of mathematics, they never have (that's why they became teachers instead of, say, engineers), and consequently they find it difficult and painful to teach. They don't even understand what they are teaching well enough to do so in an interesting way, so the students lose interest.

Of course, from such a teacher's point of view, the problem must be the textbook and the "way" in which the mathematics is being taught, and the textbooks. It couldn't possibly be that the teacher is a bonehead at mathematics. Nope.

[mathluv]

The reason for this is that these teachers don't like the subject of mathematics, they never have (that's why they became teachers instead of, say, engineers), and consequently they find it difficult and painful to teach. They don't even understand what they are teaching well enough to do so in an interesting way, so the students lose interest.

Sadly this is sometimes true - especially in elementary school. Elementary teachers are often language arts people, not math. I am a math teacher. My son-in-law is an engineer. I love math for being math, he loves math to use it.

The one reason more teachers don't love/teach math is money. After 20 years, my salary as a classroom teacher is less than half of his with less experience.