Teacher’s perspective on values of mathematics

Abstract

This study is aimed to investigate teachers’ view, students’ response and obstacles on the implementation of the values of mathematics in teaching and learning of mathematics. The main background of this study is due to mathematics education mostly tends to focus on developing cognitive aspect more than involving affective aspect, whereas affective aspectin teaching and learning process is also important.This study applied qualitative approach, by investigating teachers’ point of view, students’ response and obstacles related to the phenomenon. This research was conducted in a school in Lembang, Bandung Barat District, West Java. The result of the researchshows that teachers tend to view mathematics as a subject and mathematics as values, which is character building, are separately.While there is a very close connection between them, mathematics as a subject and mathematics as values. Concerning the students’ response, they began to recognize that the values of mathematics which are related to daily activities are a part of mathematics learning. There are some obstacles in the implementation of the values of mathematics in teaching and learning of mathematics. One of them is integrating the mathematical values and the mathematical concepts into teaching and learning of mathematics. In short, the crucial essence of teaching and learning of mathematics is not only about teaching the concepts of mathematics to students, but also internalizing the values of mathematics to students.The result ofthe study recommendsa new sight regarding the importance of mathematical values in teaching and learning of mathematics.