So to return to the extract at the beginning of this section: Mr. Blake is not just an expert mathematician, he is also an expert teacher-and it may be that when the students say "expert" in this extract they do in fact mean the latter- it is not clear. In any event, the important distinction is how he uses his expertise to guide but not to constrain-his authority lies in his ability to demonstrate the practices of mathematics, rather than in knowing the "right answer": he encourages other explanations, and he listens. The student teacher does neither of these things. As someone in a position of power, she appears to abuse the students' trust. She does not let them suggest alternative strategies, she does not listen, she quashes their enthusiasm and refuses to help. Bibby (2006; forthcoming) reports that learners aged 9-11 and 12-14 appear unable to talk about mathematics without reference to their teachers, demonstrating the intensely emotional nature of their relationships. We see this also in the following extract, this time from a Key Stage 2 (ages 9-11) discussion:
P1: ok, Miss South, she sometimes ignores me and stuff and I don't really like it, yeah she sometimes I don't really like it (...) It hurts my feelings.
Researcher: It hurts your feelings, yeah, and I wonder does that make it easier to learn or harder?
Pi: Harder, and like l open my book and see that get all the questions wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Researcher oh no, so you feel ignored and then you're feeling that you haven't got it right?[..] Pl : …and it's not my fault that got everything wrong, it's Miss South's fault that I got everything wrong.
Researcher: So what happens when you get it wrong?
PI: I feel guilty.
Researcher: You feel guilty?
P1: Yeah.
Researcher: Because?
PI: Miss South ignored me [...]
Pi: I don't know why I feel guilty it's still quite my fault because I got the questions wrong a bit, but it's normally Miss South's fault.
P2: Well I feel like that, it's because Miss South like, I put my hand up and she never chooses me, especially like in maths, she loves the other Year 5 class and then like um she blames me if I've got it wrong, it's like "Hafsah you don't understand" but it's her, she doesn't understand and then when I'm ignored I don't like it, I feel left out and nobody ignores me! But then she says I only ignore you, it's because you're so clever, but then that's not true.
Researcher: What do you think is true?
P2: I think it's just she doesn't like me, no Alice it's true, I don't think she likes me that much. P2: When you keep on being left out, you think of something, you think that oh maybe they don't like you and that's how I feel.
Researcher: And what happens to you when you're trying to get on with learning things and you feel that your teacher doesn't like you? Does that make a difference?
P2: Yes, it's a bit difficult to like concentrate and then she's like "you're not concentrating properly but then when you tell her that "you're leaving me out then she doesn't know how you feel because it's not happening to her!
Researcher: Because she's not being left out?
P2: Yeah cos she's being, like everyone's surrounding her going Miss South, Miss South!
In these extracts we see the emotional investment of learners in their relationships with teachers, and their hurt at betrayal of trust. This is not just a social issue, it is a pedagogic one: their complaints about the student teacher and Miss South are based in the effect of the relationship on their learning. Classroom relationships are at the heart of relationships with/in mathematics.