A comment on Anne Brosnan’s paper “Introducing lesson study in promoting a new mathematics curriculum in Irish post-primary schools” in Vol. 3 No. 3, 2014

Citation

Posch, P. (2015), "A comment on Anne Brosnan’s paper “Introducing lesson study in promoting a new mathematics curriculum in Irish post-primary schools” in Vol. 3 No. 3, 2014", International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLLS-01-2015-0002

A comment on Anne Brosnan’s paper “Introducing lesson study in promoting a new mathematics curriculum in Irish post-primary schools” in Vol. 3 No. 3, 2014

Article Type: Discussion From: International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2.

Studies with (at least initially) disappointing results can provide more important messages than success stories. This paper is a good example. The main conclusion of this project after one year of using lesson studies in order to facilitate the introduction of a new math curriculum in post-primary schools was: Too much has been attempted too quickly.

Teachers were confronted simultaneously with:

• pressures due to declining PISA results;

• the implementation of a new curriculum demanding a major change in professional attitudes and practices; and

• the introduction of lesson studies demanding new forms of cooperation in planning, observing and analysing lessons.

This combination seriously challenged their traditional practice to assimilate new curricular provisions without changing established beliefs regarding teaching and learning. Therefore it must have created opposition among teachers against the “weaker” part of this combination: lesson studies. The introduction of lesson studies may also have endangered the “autonomy-parity pattern” (D. Lortie) governing relationships between teachers in many schools: its basic premises are that no other person should interfere with the teachers’ job (autonomy), and that all teachers should be regarded equal irrespective of competences and commitment (parity).

Luckily, after three years, it showed that the experience with lesson study had not been in vain but had shaken some traditional beliefs and had opened a window for change in the professional culture. Anne Brosnan’s paper provides many useful suggestions for the introduction of lesson or learning studies in countries in which a culture of cooperation among teachers has not yet developed.

Peter Posch