English EditionNo. 4 December 2010

Social Characteristics of the Teaching Profession
Center for Teachers,
and Teacher Evaluation Curriculum
Mariko Kaneko
Tokyo Gakugei UniversityIn 2010, we published “Sociology of Teacher Evaluation”,
written and edited by KARIYA Takehiko and KANEKO Mariko,from Iwanami Shoten. It presents investigation and analysesof the reform process of the teacher evaluation system inMiyazaki Prefecture. The reform process of the teacher evaluation is an attempt to evaluate the teaching profession
externally‒‒a profession which is considered to be complex,
diverse, and sensitive, with its achievements themselves
being difﬁcult to see in the short term. For that reason, theintroduction of a teacher evaluation system prompts
resistance from teachers, then it brings light to the core of theactivity called education.
To begin with, the teaching profession has been burdenedwith fundamentally ambivalent social characteristics becauseof an incessant tug of war between “experiential knowledge
accumulated by teachers during the experience of teaching”
and “changing social demands”. The former, based on experience of educational practice and school organization, isknowledge that has been generated historically and culturally
in the workplaces called schools and which is passed onamong teacher groups. The latter encompasses the requests
and expectations that people put upon schools and teachersin accordance with changing times. The tug of war by those
two forces can be recognized not only in the logic of theteachersʼ side, which accepts the reform, but also in the logicof the side that carries the reform forward.
In the process of the introduction of the teacher evaluation
system in Miyazaki Prefecture, these logics of the reform sideand the teachersʼ side were conﬂicting, complicatedly
tangled, and mutually inﬂuential. We attempted to bring lightto peopleʼs logics for the teaching profession and the changing processes of their logics by scrutinizing the system reform“process”.
We showed that experienced teachers are conscious ofdifferent evaluation viewpoints from diverse others. They
adjust and accept it on a daily basis, choosing their own
actions according to time and circumstances. For that reason,
they implicitly see through it at the level of daily knowledge
acquired in teaching experience; the so-called “correct evalu-ation” is ﬁctional and does notexist substantively. If that istrue, then the more the reform
side tries to substantiate the“correct evaluation” by improving evaluation techniques andthe accuracy, the more doubts
arise among teachers against
the reliability and validity ofevaluations (Chapter 7). At thesame time, even if evaluation
results are presented to teachers as one-dimensional andgeneral information, issues of power and coordination aremultiply inherent behind the side to evaluate (Chapter 4).
Confronting that reality, Miyazaki Prefecture went back on its
policy that evaluation results are reﬂected on transfers andsalaries of teachers. Now it tries instead to make use of the
conﬂicts with teachersʼ side over the evaluation as opportunities for communication between administrators and teachers.
Based on above-mentioned ﬁndings, the side to evaluate
and the side to be evaluated should conduct evaluations withawareness of the reality that the teacher evaluation is anadjustment issue of the different eyes of diverse others. The
reform side should at least be extremely cautious about using
evaluation results with such a nature for the result-oriented
purposes. On the other hand, teachers should accept evaluation results not as absolute but as one mode reﬂecting eyesfrom diverse others, and only continue to adjust various
evaluation viewpoints on their own initiatives to the last. Sucha present situation which is originated from social characteristics of the teaching profession guarantees multiple functions
and possibilities of schools.
When the teacher evaluation system seems to bringdiscord to such adjustment processes by teachers themselves, teachers should voice their feelings of resistance. We
need to develop communicative organizations and environments in school and administration system, in which teachers
can raise their voices.

Introducing a Visiting Professor from Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Institute of Education Dr. Yip Chi Wing

The Curriculum Center for Teachers is going to invite Dr.
Yip Chi Wing from the Hong Kong Institute of Education as
an International Visiting Professor during ﬁscal year 2010.
He will hold the position for six months from January 2011.
Prior to his arrival, we asked Dr. Yip to introduce his
research history.

A bit different from the educational background ofmost of the previous visiting scholars in the Curriculum
Center for Teachers at TGU; my formal academic
training is in the ﬁelds of Cognitive Science andLanguage. After completing my PhD in Cognitive
Psychology and Psycholinguistics 10 years ago at theChinese University of Hong Kong (with graduate
training at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands), I started my academic career as
an experimental psychologist; and currently I am anAssociate Professor at the Hong Kong Institute ofEducation.
During the past ten years, I have been working on
different research projects on the broad area of Cognitive Science: an interdisciplinary ﬁeld consists ofPsychology, Philosophy, Education, Computer Sciences,Linguistics, Anthropology, etc. The core of this area is toinvestigate how our mind works. After joining the Hong
Kong Institute of Education, I start to teach to preservice teachers and in-service teachers and work on
projects in the Educational area; which seriouslyintrigue my recent research interest in this area.
One of my two recent research projects in the educational area is concerned about the educationalpsychology. This line of research projects include theexamination of study strategies of students and therelation with the academic performance; the crosscultural perspective on studentsʼ motivation; and theeffects of the continuous changing of socioeconomicsituation on education policy. Our research

The Hong Kong Institute of Educationteam has already accomplished some work withseveral interesting ﬁndings, which was published inseveral international journal papers. The other projectis about the reading-related project. Our research teamis intending to examine the factors on reading/learning
English to the young at-risk kids (kindergarten kids
around 5+ years old). These two lines of research arecollaborated with different universities over the world(Pennsylvania State University, USA; Beijing Normal
University, China and Texas A&M University).
In addition to the educational projects, I am always
interested in the underlying mechanism of spoken
language processing, language comprehension inChinese, English, and other languages. I approach thisline of research from different methodologies: byconducting experiments, computer simulations andmeasuring ERPs. These language projects are mainlycollaborated with scholars in different regions of theworld (Pennsylvania State University, USA; Peking
University; Beijing Normal University; Chinese University of Hong Kong; Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands; and University of Maastricht,
the Netherlands).
Other than the academic aspect, my usual personal
interests lie in reading, travelling; and enjoying
delicious food (like Sashimi and Sushi). Now, I have a
new and challenging personal interest: that is learning
Japanese.
Finally, it is my honor to be invited as the visiting
scholar to the Curriculum Center for Teachers at TGU
next year. I hope that we can work together to makesomething different and I am looking forward towalking around the beautiful campus of Tokyo Gakugei
University and the vicinity of Koganei!
We plan to have lectures presented by Dr. Yip. For
more information, please see p.4.

School as a “Learning Developing Community”
The Division of Research and Development for In-Service Teachers

The Division of Research and Development for In-ServiceTeachers started two joint study projects this year: the“preparation project to develop examination tools for theeffectiveness of teacher training”, and the “modernreorganizing project for supporting professional growthof teachers”. The latter is intended for the improvementof qualiﬁcations and abilities of teachers from morecomprehensive and theoretical perspectives. It will bedone with careful regard to the deliberation process of
the “comprehensive improvement policies of qualiﬁcations and abilities of teachers throughout the life of theteaching profession” submitted for the Central Council ofEducation in summer 2010. We regard ﬁscal year 2010 asa sort of a warm-up period and make a full-ﬂedged startof joint studies in 2011.
In October 2010, I took part in two international
symposiums organized by the Northeast Normal University in Chang Chun, Jilin Province, China. One was a
discussion of the specialization of the teaching profession and teacher education (organized by the Institute ofTeacher Education). The other was related to school
improvement and professional growth of school principals (organized by the School of Education Science).
Although I presented a report at each symposium, I
would like to introduce here a topic from the latter one.
I reported on the development of managerial ability, aquality which principals in Japan now strongly require. Be
that as it may, Chinese, Canadian, and American researchers participated in the symposium. Each report that they
made was interesting because they introduced andexamined practices with similar directional movements
using different expressions. They can be summarized as“school-based growth of teacher groups” and “schoolimprovement”. The points are as follows: instead of anindividual teacher improving a school by struggling like a“superman”, making a “school” work as a unit; on thatbasis, then acquiring resources in various senses by cooperating with public administration and universities; andthen leveraging those resources as learning performanceof students. In one report, such a school is designated as a
Learning Developing Community (LDC). It probablydenotes a community in which both teachers andstudents continue to learn and grow.
It was also very interesting that the situation of the inservice training introduced by the report on the LDC
project made me feel a very similar atmosphere to that ofa training program in which I have been involved sincelast year. It was the training program for private schools to“enhance school organizational power”. Using suchknowledge for the joint studies in the Center, I would liketo work on international research exchange and information transmission in the future. (Kenji Maehara)ﬁnd a way to solve problems of which they were acutelyExpectations for the Curriculum howaware through on-the-job training. As training opportunities
Center for Teachers
for such in-service teachers, Chiba Prefecture offers long-term

Masayuki Takaoka

Principal, Chiba Prefectural Chiba Seniorand Junior High School
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum
Center for Teachers
Entering upon an era of mass retirement and mass employment of teachers, readjusting the training curricula for newly
employed teachers is becoming an important issue in theTokyo Metropolitan area.
Last year, I had the opportunity to serve as a lecturer in theGraduate School of Education at Chiba University on Saturday
evenings because I was the chief of the Guidance Division ofthe Chiba Board of Education. Along with graduate students
and international students, in-service teachers were present
who took the course after school events even though they had
a long way to travel from the southern tip of the Boso Peninsula. What I felt, when I served as a lecturer, was the in-service
teachersʼ serious attitude about the course. They tried to some-training programs and on-site training in companies.
For the internship for beginning teachers stipulated in theArticle 23 of the Special Act for Education Personnel, eachprefecture is elaborating and developing curricula. The existing
internship for beginning teachers requires 25 days of out-ofschool training and 300 hours of in-service training. In Chiba
Prefecture, it is going to be implemented with a decrease to 20
days and 240 hours, respectively, from the ﬁscal year of 2011.
Instead, follow-up training will be implemented for teachers intheir second and third years of service. A kind of training isintended by which teachers set out research themes based on
their own task-consciousness and by which teachers shareresearch results by presenting them to each other. It also aims
to involve principals with rich teaching experience in advising
how each teacher sets out research themes for confronting
problems.
I expect that the Curriculum Center for Teachers will continue
to function ﬂexibly as the headquarters of curriculum development to solve a wide range of problems that educational sites
must confront, such as teacher education and training.

Center for Educational Research andDevelopment, University of the Ryukyus
Minoru Kobayashi“Practice School” at anelementary school

The University of the Ryukyus
project entitled “Developmentof a model for improving
educational practical skills withpracticeschools” was selected
as the FY 2008 “Program for
Promoting High-Quality
University Education” (withthree-year duration). Here we

describe the project content and introduce some challenges forteacher education at the university.
The University of the Ryukyus trains teachers not only for thepurpose of having good teaching ability for subjects, we also aim totrain teachers to possess “comprehensive competence”. The effort
centers on the ability to create something personally and includes
the following abilities: to ﬁnd and explore tasks, to communicate, tothink and judge, to create, to address public relations, and tosolve problems. Nonetheless, up to date, we have seen only few

Practical Seminar for Teaching Profession
In 2008, the Ordinance for Enforcement of the Education Personnel
Certiﬁcation Act was revised and the new subject was introduced. It
is aimed at reviewing prescribed learning for teacher education atuniversities and identifying the level of studentsʼ achievement intheir knowledge and practical skills. From the 2010 matriculates,
two credits are newly assigned as compulsory in “subjects related toteaching”. In addition, the introduction of items such as “rishu karte(course registration chart)” has been encouraged for students tomanage their course registration history while in university.
Although that subject is separately set out for the licenses of “teachers”, “Nursing teachers”, and “Nutrition teachers”. However, students
are required common content in the case of obtaining multiple

scenes to teach and train by combining these abilities in teachertraining courses in Japan other than teaching practice. Consequently, this time we set up a “practice school” (hereinafterdesignated as “PS”) in the university by studentsʼ ideas and focusedon training for the above-mentioned comprehensive competence.
The PS consists of the following two stages. The ﬁrst is the stage forplanning, programming, and negotiating. No elementary andsecondary school pupils are involved here. Meetings and negotiations for setting up an attractive PS are conducted only by university
students. At school sites, there are scenes in which teachers are withchildren and in which they are on their own, such as staff meetings
with grades and teachersʼ meetings. This stage mainly imagines thelatter scene and tries to enhance the collegiality and cooperationnecessary for teachers. University teachers evaluate them bylooking at how things are going.
The second stage is the scene in which students actually teachelementary and secondary school pupils attending the PS. One PS
is planned and run by about 20 students: 10 seniors and 10freshmen. In this project, students must take the course twice,basically in their ﬁrst and fourth years at university. At both stages,
we give them feedback each time. Evaluation criteria are differentiated according to grades and scenarios. We repeat self-evaluations
and evaluations by others, students and university teachers, basedon these prescribed evaluation criteria. By repeating these evaluations and adjustments, we aim to train teachers with higher-quality
comprehensive competence.
“teacher” such as to get elementary and junior high school teacher
licenses together.
The subject is a byproduct of the Teachersʼ License Renewal
System. When the Central Council of Education was considering asystem to update the license every certain number of years from aperspective of “ensuring teachersʼ eligibility”, the following
comment was raised: “A system to judge the eligibility is also neededat the time of approving the license at universities”. For that reason,
the subject was newly set up as a meaning of quality assurance atthe ʻexitsʼ. Subsequently, the license update system wasimplemented by taking a different approach of what aims at“renewal”, and the word of “eligibility” disappeared from the purposeof the “Practical Seminar for Teaching Profession”. Consequently, it
produced the unintended result that differences from existing
subjects related to teaching are difﬁcult to see. (Yasuyuki Iwata)

Talking about the Improvement of thePracticum
Teacher Training and Practicum of theHong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) Role of Schoolteachers in the Initial Teacher
Education: From the Examples of the HKIEd
Dr. Yip Chi Wing
Dr. Yip Chi Wing
* All the events are held from 3:00pm to 5:00pm at the Curriculum Center for Teachers.
Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director

SAKAI, Toshiki(Professor, History Education and Korean Education)

Center Researchers[Division of Curriculum Research and Development]MITSUISHI, Hatsuo(Professor, Curriculum Studies)
KANEKO, Mariko(Associate Professor, Educational Sociology)[Division of Teacher Preparation Research and Development]
IWATA, Yasuyuki(Associate Professor, Historical Studies of Teacher Education)
UESUGI, Yoshimi(Associate Professor, Media Education)[Division of Research and Development for In-Service Teachers]
MAEHARA, Kenji(Associate Professor, Educational Administration)

The CCT is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
Tokyo Gakugei University.
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
Designer: Tsukasa Aoyama and Xiaohui Zhang(Aoyama Lab., Calligraphy and Arts, Tokyo Gakugei University)
Curriculum Center for Teachers, Tokyo Gakugei University
4-1-1 Nukui-kitamachi Koganei, Tokyo 184-8501 Japan
Tel: 81-42-329-7776

Fax: 81-42-329-7786

E-mail: currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp
Website: http://www.u-gakugei.ac.jp/˜currict/english/index.html