English Edition
No. 14

February 2016

“21st Century Competencies” and the Teacherʼs Role
The 16th “Future School Education and Teacher Education
Curriculum” took place at Tokyo Gakugei University on theafternoon of December 13 (Sun.), 2015, under the theme of
the “21st Century Competencies” and the “Teacherʼs Role.”
It was a symposium hosted by Curriculum Center for Teachers (and supported by Japan Association of Universities of
Education, The Japanese Society for the Study of Teacher
Education, Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, andother organizations). Based on proposals from Professor
Tadahiko Abiko (Kanagawa University), Professor Hatsuo
Mitsuishi (Teikyo University), Professor Manabu Kishi(Vice-president of Tokyo Gakugei University), a lively discussion was developed among approximately 130 participants
who had gathered from all over Japan.

The proposal of Professor Abiko was developed from theviewpoint of how to see “qualities and abilities that students
should foster” and turn them into a policy in relation to thenext revision of the Course of Study, based on his extensive
experience involved in policy deliberation. The attitude
existed in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology, which tried to advance “quality and ability”
as the center relating to the nature of evaluation, altering
the “content”-based, conventional revision of the Course of
Study, which is related closely to the key competencies towhich the OECD refers. Professor Abiko introduced the idea
that, although the investigative committee on which heserved as the chairperson had been conducted with that
tone, the issue of “active learning” was strongly set out at
the stage of the consultation with the Central Council for
Education, probably because the Minister of MEXT had
preferred it, and led to the three pillars in the “Summary ofIssues.” Subsequently, Professor Abiko pointed out theimportance of making revisions in the following points at
school sites as the points related to the teacherʼs role: (1)Make students aware of the limitations of nationalsovereignty; (2) Be careful to include personality elements
into competency; and (3) Encourage childrenʼs
independence under the circumstances likely to be twisted
around by policies.
The following, Professor Mitsuishiʼs proposal, was started
with organization of the ﬂow of the consideration mainly by
the Subcommittee on Teacher Education of the Central
Council for Education, which led to the release of a report theweek after the symposium (on December 21). The points ofdeliberation here lay in the trends of a distinction: what wascalled the subject contents (subjects related to school
subjects) and the teaching method of school subjects wasdisappearing. Moreover, the training education at thegraduate school of teacher education was being valued. It wasemphasized that, behind the trends, a change of the view
existed on academic ability. At the same time, he indicated thatcaution was necessary when considering childrenʼs academic
abilities in future Japan because some things were included or
excluded from the OECD framework. Subsequently, Professor
Mitsuishi proposed that we might need to consider teacher
education at university with four images in mind: teacher as apractitioner, teacher as a researcher, teacher as a person ofculture, and teacher as an adult.
Furthermore, Professor Kishi reported on the examinationof ideal teaching models and evaluation in a project that isbeing implemented through a tie up between the Research
Organization for Next-Generation Education, Tokyo Gakugei
University, and the OECD. As preparatory work, an attitude
survey of school teachers was conducted in terms ofwhether the elements of the key competencies to which
the OECD referred could be fostered or not. He pointed outthat the characteristic diﬀerences between subjects wereshown clearly as a result of the survey.
In a discussion based on them, many points of argument
were put forth, including subjects related to how to see active
learning itself (particularly in relation to the “use-oriented” inthe previous Course of Study), relationships between themand new educational movements to date, and relationships
between teaching and evaluation. A lively exchange of views
was held. Although the time was insuﬃcient, many issues
such as the following were apparently shared. The directionin which students are positively engaged in learning isstrongly being set forth, and being closely related to that,teachers also foster new positivity.
(Yasuyuki Iwata)

Invited a Teacher Education Researcher from Saxony, Germany
In February 2015, the Curriculum Center for Teachers extended an invitation to Prof. Dr. Axel Gehrmann fromTechnische Universität Dresden, Germany, to be a visiting professor. During his stay until August this year, we will
arrange an opportunity for him to talk about the latest teacher education research and practice in Germany.
Prof. Dr. Axel Gehrmann contributed a brief self-introduction to the newsletter.

Scientiﬁc Career
For more than 25 years I have been working actively as alecturer and researcher in the ﬁeld of school and teacher
research at various university sites in Germany. In 1989 I
ﬁnished my studies focusing on educational science at theFree University of Berlin in the Western part of Berlin andworked there as a research assistant in diﬀerent
departments for more than 10 years.
After positions as a visiting professor, i. e. as a professor in
the federal states of Berlin, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania and Baden-Wuerttemberg, since 2010 I havebeen working as a Professor of Educational Science at theDresden University of Technology. The Dresden Universityof Technology (TUD) is one of eleven Universities of
Excellence in Germany and has more than 35,000 students.
As a comprehensive university with a wide range ofsubjects, TUD is among the leading research universities inGermany, and considers exchange and cooperation ofsciences with economy and society as its basis.
During my activities so far, I have practiced the qualitative
as well as the quantitative research paradigm. My
dissertation is an individual case study based on qualitativeinterviews with male and female teachers with practice inBerlin and dealing with the question of how individual
schools in the eastern part of the city are developing after
the reuniﬁcation in the course of the educational
regulations. My postdoctoral thesis is based on
representative surveys of 3,000 male and female teachersand emphasizes the areas of “professional experience” and“professional attitude”. Finally, I have especially been
concentrating on career changers to the teachingprofession. Together with colleagues I concluded an
EU-Project funded with 1 million Euro, for merging 40
university graduates, who originally havenʼt been educatedteachers, into school teaching in the federal state of Saxony.

Current Main Focus

In October 2012 the rector of the TUD appointed me as
managing director of the Center for Teacher Education,
Schooling and Vocational education (ZLSB) of the Dresden
University of Technology, which was celebrating its 10th
anniversary that year. The Center has service and researchfunctions for all sub-areas of teacher education inconnection with the support of 3,500 student teachers of
the TUD. In the ZLSB more than 30 employment
relationships are embedded, including 15 teachers fromschool practice, being seconded there for up to 5 years fromtheir schools by the Ministry of Education and CulturalAﬀairs of Saxony. The service area of the ZLSB includes thecoordination of teaching oﬀerings, internships andexaminations, participation in the arrangement of study andexamination rules, support of evaluations on teaching andstudies, as well as participation in the development and
proﬁling of oﬀerings for studies and continuing education
development. The research area includes the coordinationand initiation of interdisciplinary research as well as thepromotion of young academics for teacher education.
Finally in the course of the ZLSB under my leadership, we
worked intensively on the preparation of a competition
procedure for the Ministry of Education and Cultural Aﬀairs,
whose goal is the promotion of site-speciﬁc teacher
education in Germany against a background of an external

program evaluation. Thereby in October 2015, Dresden
University of Technology was the only university in Saxony,
which could persuade its application in the course of thepromotional “Quality initiative teacher education” program.
For the package of measures of “Synergetic teacher
education in the course of excellence” from January 2016
until June 2019, about 5.4 million Euros are used at the TUD.
With these funds more than 30 new positions for academic
and non-academic personnel are established, which
directly beneﬁts the improvement of teacher education.
Altogether, 16 sub-projects attend to the focal points of“Organization Development”, “Quality Improvement” and“Regional Networking”.

Challenges of Teacher Education
After the completion of the academic reforms, the teacher
education classes of the TUD are in a phase of consolidation.
Simultaneously, the teacher training in Saxony faces a range ofcurrent challenges. Three quarters of the teachers currently
teaching at schools in Saxony, are about to retire between 2018and 2035. This results in a continuing high demand for
replacements, which cannot be covered right away by theteaching profession graduates of Saxonyʼs universities inconsideration of existing study capacities. Therefore, already inthe ﬁrst phase of the teacher education, eﬀorts should be madeto acquire a suﬃcient number of teachers for professional
activities, especially for activities in rural areas. Last but not least,
against the background of a demographic variation, questions
will follow with regard to the problem of how sites in regions
distant from big cities can be maintained at all.

Other Activities

Besides my activities for TUD, I was chairman of the commission
for Profession Research and Teacher Education of the The
German Educational Research Association (GERA) for ﬁve years
until end of 2014, and for 12 years I have been the co-publisherof The Educational Science Review (EWR) ‒ a review magazine
for all sub-areas of educational science. Since 2013, as a liaison
lecturer of the Hans-Böckler Foundation, I have taken care thatstudying is also possible for those who have the abilities but not
the ﬁnancial backup from their parents.
In private, I like cycling. I also occupy myself with the German
author Walter Kempowski, who died in 2007, who worked
actively as a teacher for a long time and processed his
experiences in books, and he went far beyond that bypresenting a “German Chronicle” on the basis of his family
history, which he merged into the so-called “Echo sounder
Project” at the end of his life. He tried to preserve the various
voices of the Second World War for posterity.
Prof. Dr. Axel Gehrmann
Technische Universität Dresden

Aﬃliated School Exchange between TGU and NENU Starts
The Curriculum Center for Teachers of Tokyo Gakugei
University (TGU) has been conducting joint researchon teacher education practice with the Academy for
Research in Teacher Education of Northeast Normal
University (NENU). Based on the achievements, thisyear the joint research project was extended toaﬃliated schools of the two universities. In Octoberlast year, vice principals and teachers from ouraﬃliated International Secondary School and Oizumi
Elementary School visited NENU and its aﬃliatedschools to engage in research exchanges.

On the Occasion of Visiting Aﬃliated Schoolsof NENU
Hisao Akahane
Vice Principal, Tokyo Gakugei University
International Secondary School

On October 11, 2015, we departed from Narita Airport for
Changchun on a ﬂight longer three hours. Leaving theworkplace with two accompanying elementary school
teachers, I had many worries about the one-week training
in terms of language, customs, and culture. However, wewere given a warm welcome at the site. During the period,
we had a great deal of support from teachers at the university as well as students who used to study in Japan, whichallowed us to have truly meaningful training. Especially,
the visits to aﬃliated schools brought endless surprises tome in a sense. At present, Japan idealizes education bywhich teachers can keep an eye on each student, reducing
the number of students in a class. In contrast, the class in
China is quite large. Once students sit down in theclassroom, they cannot even move; it is almost impossible
for teachers to walk around studentsʼ desks to inspectthem. Under the circumstances, teachers provide uniform
teaching, making a full use of IT devices. Students also
were well-adapted to the environment. To be honest, I feltthat students who relaxed their attention during the classwere fewer than in Japan. The training this time left a deep
impact on my mind. I strongly felt that exchanging
students who were in completely diﬀerent learning
environments might bring about new learning eﬀects;
thus I wanted to have such student exchanges.

Hoping for the Continuation andDevelopment of Aﬃliated School Exchanges
with NENU
Koichi Hosoi

Vice Principal, Oizumi Elementary School Attached toTokyo Gakugei University

I was given an opportunity to make a presentation at an
NENU forum. At the forum, I disseminated information that
“active learning” was a key word in education reform inJapan. I expected to get some reactions, but the response
was weak. Furthermore, telling a similar story at a social
gathering, I did not receive a good response. Although I
was unable to ﬁgure out the reason fully, I feel that theytreated it as if “there is no need in China.” I felt cultural
diﬀerences in education. This time I visited ﬁve aﬃliatedschools of NENU, from elementary to high schools, andobserved many classes. In each class, students certainly
had high motivation to learn and gave great responses toteacherʼs questioning all together. There might be no need
to be active. Given this, I wonder if “Japan might haveforgotten important things before active learning.” And yet
I can say that “No. Active learning has other meanings aswell ...” It was a good opportunity for me to think about
education anew.
This was the ﬁrst teacher exchange between theaﬃliated schools of NENU and TGU, so I had heard. The visit
marked a ﬁrst step for the exchange and led to anagreement on its continuation. Although the gradualexchange of schoolchildren is under consideration,
approval was made for the proposal: At the elementary
school level, “ﬁrst, let us start with exchanges between
aﬃliated school teachers ...” It was a great success.
The next exchange will become more fulﬁlling if it is not
merely to observe classes, but to provide an opportunity
for teachers of China and Japan to examine teaching plans
in a head-to head manner, have some debrieﬁngs after
observing one anotherʼs classes, and consider “What is agood class?” and “What to do for it” beyond cultural
diﬀerences. With hope that the exchanges will continue
and develop, I am very grateful for my involvement inthe ﬁrst step.

Upgrading of Teacher Education

Terminology of Teacher Education

A Special Lecture “The Gift ofa Commercial-Free Childhood” Held

Generally in Japan, “upgrading of teacher education”
means to accommodate pre-service teacher education at
a level beyond undergraduate study. Under the principleof “teacher education at the university,” the fundamental
prerequisite for teachers in Japan had been a bachelorʼs
degree, in general, for a long time after the war. However,since the Democratic Party of Japan, which became theruling party in 2009, came out with “teacher education at
the masterʼs degree level” as a policy, discussions related
to “upgrading” became active. Nonetheless, the concrete
form was considered in various ways such as thefollowing: existing academic masterʼs programs;
professional degree programs (graduate school ofteacher education); and short-term qualiﬁcation
programs for graduates. To what the “upgrading” refers
depends on the advocate. In addition, most discussions
related to “upgrading” are biased to the aspect ofstandards. Discussions related to the contents ofprograms tend to be left behind. (Yasuyuki Iwata)

On September 7 last year, the Curriculum Center for Teachers invited Dr. Susan Linn, a psychologist from Harvard
Medical School and puppet therapist, to give a lecture under
the theme of child development and commercialism. As therepresentative of Campaign for a Commercial-Free
Childhood, she has been warning about the eﬀects of thecommercial environment on children in the United States,
which is a country with advanced marketing.
Dr. Linn argues what have mainly been pointed out in theﬁelds of pediatrics and psychology: violent behavior andprecocious sexual consciousness can be eﬀects of games
and television viewing. However, what concerns Dr. Linn,
who is also a puppet therapist, most is that play to encourage childrenʼs creativity is at stake because of games andvideo viewing on tablet computers and the existence ofcharacter toys.
Through the lecture, I was able to deepen my understanding of the need for securing commercial-free time andplaces in childrenʼs lives. (Yoshimi Uesugi)

Sites Where Teachers
Are Nurtured
Kokubunji City Daigo Elementary School
Keiko Ohta

Principal, Kokubunji City Daigo Elementary School
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum Center for Teachers

Our school is a middle-sized elementary school with 14
classes, 443 students, and ﬁve resource rooms forstudents with emotional disturbance. The composition ofteachers (except management) by years of teachingexperience is the following:

After retirement of the “the baby boomer generation”,
one to three new teachers are hired each year. The newly
hired teachers account for more than half of all teachers. It
would be a common concern for many schools thatexperienced teachers are so few in number. Youngteachers are good in terms of learning with enthusiasm
and bringing vitality. However, for this situation, eﬀorts
must be made for the promotion of human resource
development within schools. Based on the reality of schoolorganization, the following two can be regarded aspressing issues.
[Issue 1] Improvement of basic teaching ability.
To foster teaching ability as a basis for the teachingprofession, abilities to conduct classes, to enhance
the understanding of children, and to try raising theteaching standards of all teachers.
[Issue 2] Development of communication skills.
To develop the capability of building “smooth
human relationships” with parents, local
communities, and colleagues, to support “TeamGosho (Daigo Elementary School)”, and to solve
problems constructively.
Our school is planning and implementing the following
two types of in-school training to resolve two issues.
In-school training to solve [Issue 1]
Thoroughness of class improvement conductedby the in-school study group
The in-school study group has been working on theestablishment and improvement of the abilities to
conduct classes and to understand children for the
implementation of “Special Subject: Moral Education”,
following the designation as a kenkyu shorei ko (researchencouragement schools) by the Board of Education in
Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director
OTAKE, Midori(Professor, Home Economics Education)
Center Researchers[Division of Curriculum Research and Development]
KANEKO, Mariko(Associate Professor, Educational Sociology)[Division of Teacher Preparation Research and Development]
IWATA, Yasuyuki(Professor, Historical Studies on Teacher Training)
UESUGI, Yoshimi(Associate Professor, Media Education)[Division of Research and Development for In-Service Teachers]
MAEHARA, Kenji(Professor, Educational Administration)

Kokubunji-city, with class improvement in “Moralpromise for the class improvement called the “Guideline
Gosho,” they are implementing it across all grades andsubjects to enhance the learning environment andteaching standards and to promote improvement
further. The following are excerpts from “Guideline
Gosho”.
• Improvement of the settled class environment(consideration for posted notices)• Class discipline “Hai, Tatsu, and Desu”• Blackboard instructions clarify the “aim” and“summary”• Enrichment of “learning to express and learn fromeach other” using hand signals and story patterns
The in-school study group is making an eﬀort toestablish the “Guideline Gosho” developmentally.
Furthermore, it is trying to improve motivation by whichteachers make it known to parents and local
communities, showing it in the school management
plan, are evaluated using a school evaluationquestionnaire, and receive training based on the PDCA
cycle with speciﬁc goals.
In-school training to solve [Issue 2]
Human resources development in accordancewith OJT guidelines
For teachers to undertake eﬀorts to improve their own
quality and to inherit and improve school aﬀairs
smoothly, the development of communication skills is
fundamentally important. Our school provides the “OJT
training workshop to promote the improvement ofschool aﬀairs.” It is a petit training workshop in which achief teacher mainly serves as a lecturer to teach eachother knowledge and skills useful for class management,
response to parents, and regional cooperation. An
executive teacher watches over a chief teacherʼsplanning and management, identiﬁes issues for whichteachers are searching at the moment, and gives
training to provide information that is immediately
useful. It is enjoyable training that is eagerly awaited forthe next workshop.
What I, as a principal, assign the most importance to is
the process by which teachers become mutually
involved in the management and enrichment of these
two types of workshop, transcending the job classes anddeepeningmutualunderstanding,providinginformation to one another. By teaching each other,teachers enhance self-eﬃcacy and self-esteem andfoster the mind to respect oneself and others. All youngteachers who worry about teaching, mid-career teachers
who worry about balancing child-rearing and work, andveteran teachers who worry about how to pass down
their rich experiences are satisﬁed with exchanges inin-school training and accumulate energy for the next.
Herein lies the true value of in-school training.
The CCT is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
Tokyo Gakugei University.
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
Designer: Tsukasa Aoyama and Emi Oura
(Aoyama Lab., Calligraphy and Arts, Tokyo Gakugei University)
Curriculum Center for Terachers, Tokyo Gakugei University
4-1-1 Nukui-kitamachi Koganei, Tokyo 184-8501 Japan
Tel: 81-42-329-7776 Fax: 81-42-329-7786
Email: currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp
Website: http://www.u-gakugei.ac.j/~currict/english/index.html