Abstract
Interview was carried out to high school teachers of mathematics, professors of mathematical education, author and editor of the mathematics textbook, and other persons concerned. It was found that, despite their effort, current mathematics textbook kept learners away from the subject and produced a lot of “Math-phobia”.
High school teachers said that current mathematics textbooks were not good enough to use. For top-level schools, current textbooks include insufficient mathematical contents for both teachers and students. Teachers have to complement the proofs or mathematical expansion. Students have to use high level workbooks for their own interests. For lower-level schools, students cannot use current textbooks at all. There are no contents which students are interested in. Teachers have to prepare much supplementary learning material or plain workbooks. They do not use current textbooks at their classrooms. In sum, current mathematics textbooks are useless in both high- and lower-level schools.
High school teachers and professors of mathematical education said that the contents of current textbooks were not ‘mathematical.' Textbooks showed only a model or a typical solution, but they paid few attention to growing the power of thought or correcting possible mistakes of learners. High school students could not understand the purpose of mathematics and feel the pleasure of learning mathematics from their textbooks.
Such textbooks would keep the learners away from the world of mathematics and produce a lot of “Math-phobia”. We need a new textbook which includes advanced contents, detailed descriptions and practical exercise which can arouse interests of learners. Textbooks are important because they are taken as a knotting point to connect teachers, students, professors and editors. Condition and possibility of a new textbook in which discourses for learners are more deliberately constructed were discussed.
