Professional Development of Teacherresearchers (Pdtr) in Tamil Nadu, India
We report on our investigation of the applications of the TR/NYCity model of mathematics teaching-research approach to teaching and learning in Tamil Nadu, India. The TR/NYCity methodology and the design experiment were presented during epiSTEMe-1 (Czarno
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5.3. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHERRESEARCHERS (PDTR) IN TAMIL NADU, INDIA Focus on Women in Community-Based Schools of Tamil Nadu
INTRODUCTION
We report on our investigation of the applications of the TR/NYCity model of mathematics teaching-research approach to teaching and learning in Tamil Nadu, India. The TR/NYCity methodology and the design experiment were presented during epiSTEMe-1 (Czarnocha & Prabhu, 2004). Immediately after the epiSTEMe-1 presentation, outlining the outcomes of the methodology for the integration of practice and theory, the request for such an integration was initiated by Senthil Babu (then, present in the audience): The teaching research aspect will be focused on the teacher volunteers who are in charge of the night schools. These volunteers need to be trained in localized content development of the curriculum of the night schools, aware of the necessity of keeping the contents alive in relation to the political-economic dimensions of the village; be trained in areas that will enable them to intervene in day to day events of the village. Babu stated his vision: We need action research programmes concerning pedagogy,―but not merely concerning on teaching children better but how the night school as a total institution in a rural setting can become viable by incorporating the educational needs of the agricultural labourers and the fish and boat workers. The night school needs to be seen in totality not as fragmented centre of concerns for fragmented ideas. We need to create institutions that will sustain themselves, and spur out waves of change from there out to the big bad world. His counterpart from Sathyamangalam, Karuppuswami, the head of the READ NGO, informed us last January, that the community is not interested anymore solely in the technical/mathematical knowledge of the teacher; now, a strong need arises for a new profile of the teacher, that of a community motivator and a social entrepreneur,―a teacher, who can work along the cognitive development of children
B. Czarnocha et al. (Eds.), The Creative Enterprise of Mathematics Teaching Research, 487–498. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
V. Prabhu & B. Czarnocha
in the classroom towards the establishment and transformation of the community surrounding the school. These are new ideas, originating directly from India, that offer an exciting opportunity of self-transformation of the community, where intellectual and emotional needs of the community’s children are one of the basic principles and aims of this transformation. It turned out that many of the villages of the community-based night schools in question were situated in the path of the tsunami in Nagapattinam and Cuddalore region. Reflection upon the requested task reveals a powerful vision where the TR methods of classroom enquiry into the process of teaching and learning mathematics, are integrated with the Action Research activities in the communities housing the night schools. The vision allows to ponder on the possibilities of social transformation of
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