We address two of the challenges that were recently raised in APJTE editorial. The editorial aimed to encourage the APJTE research community, and the field of teacher education broadly, to engage in research, in which a complex view of teaching is assumed, explored, and proactively supported. We offer a perspective on the standing of two of the outlined challenges in mathematics education research and notes on what pursuing these challenges may entail. Specifically, we comment on the challenges of (1) "reclaiming a practically meaningful, intellectually rigorous and politically astute conception of teaching," and (2) "dealing well with and rigorously theorising the complexity of education, teaching, and teacher education." We start with a brief (and necessarily reductive) account of the history of mathematics education research domain and highlight how the conceptions of teachers and teaching were shaped through the research endeavours. We bring to the fore the implications that the dominant research approaches had for resources for teaching school mathematics. In this context, we turn to design research methodology in mathematics education and illustrate how the methodology, when coupled with the orientation of designing "for teachers," can assist in the researchers' pursuits of the outlined challenges.