English Edition
No. 15

July 2016

Beyond the Curriculum

Address at the Inauguration of the President of the Center
Shigeki Mayama
Director of the Curriculum Center for Teachers, Tokyo Gakugei University
The teacher education curriculum is the framework of asystem for eﬀective cultivation of knowledge, skills, andabilities required by those students who want to beteachers. Furthermore, the framework is ﬂeshed out by
various classes that are supported by university teachersʼ
high degree of specialization. In older styles of education,
quality was suﬃcient when these were solid.
In the present day, when the qualitative transformationof university education has been questioned, our university
has made a certain amount of eﬀort. With the developmentof syllabuses and the introduction of the CAP system(which sets the upper limits on the number of credits
obtainable in one academic year) and the course registration chart system, we have improved the quality ofstudentsʼ learning. Furthermore, providing introductory
seminars for new students and Practical Seminars for Teaching Profession for fourth year students, we have improved
the curriculum to enhance the entrance and exit of teacher
education. All of these are reforms to foster better students
in university systems.
How about reforms by university teachers themselves?
Group study classes that are implemented as Faculty Development make teachers improve their class contents andteaching abilities. Nonetheless, the reality is that the use of
the system has not been disseminated much.
Even after the necessity of active learning thatencourages studentsʼ independent learning has been
urged, many teachers are groping in the dark about what todo, or they are looking on with folded arms. I myself have
tried to conduct classes in a subject for four years to makestudents think independently. In the ﬁrst year, with myinexperience and clumsiness, negative comments for theclass were written in 60 percent of the responses to thepost-class questionnaire survey. However, positive
comments gradually increased, and positive comments forthe class accounted for more than 80 percent four years
later. Nonetheless, the frequency of independent learning
before and after the class only slightly aﬀected the scoreson the ﬁnal examination. I am wondering if the positive
comments that 80 percent of students wrote on thequestionnairesarenothing more than theirself-satisfaction, or if theeﬀects of independent
learning are simply notappearing
rapidly.
Further research isnecessary for evaluation.
Still, it is an indisputable
fact that active learning
has strengthened theirmotivation.
Active learning will
not necessarily be
suﬃcient to have students hold group discussion and dogroup work. Inquisitive learning that has often been
conducted in science is one part of active learning. It might
be rather natural that the teaching method to have students
learn actively diﬀers depending on the subject. What active
learning aims at is to cultivate competencies such as thoseto think, apply, and create. The key to achieve the goal is,after all, teaching methods in the class. However, university
teachers who are not familiar with teaching methodology
are quite numerous, including myself.
Study meetings on the class are often held in elementaryand junior high schools. At the meetings, there is a place toexchange views on the content and methods. Moreover,advice is given from supervisors. In addition, plenty of
handbooks are available to conduct better classes. By contrast,
the group study class is the only place prepared for mostteachers at our university to improve educational methods.
Even if a wonderful curriculum exists, without teachersʼ
teaching ability, positive results would not be produced. As auniversity, it might be necessary to provide organizational
support to give advice to university teachers on
improvement strategies, such as teaching and evaluation
methods, as well as to gather information about eﬀective
teaching methods for each subject. What to do beyond thecurriculum ― I think that this will be an issue that isconnected directly with universitiesʼ ability to educate.

Reality and Problems Surrounding Teacher Educationin the Faculty of Education at National Universities
Hirotoshi Fukushima

Associate Professor, Hirosaki University
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum Center for Teachers

When considering the reality and problems of teacher
education in the faculty of education at national
universities, the National University Reform Plan is acontext that cannot be ignored. One concern over theplan is weakening of the organizational basis forteacher education, or the decline of the centripetal
force of the faculty of education. First, with a national
policy that emphasizes the faculties of sciences andwhich makes the functions of the faculty of education
be specialized in teacher education, the quota ofstudents for the faculty of education has been
reduced by abolishing courses for which a teacherʼslicense is not a requirement for graduation.
Consequently, a reduction in the number of its faculty
members has occurred. When the roles of the facultyof teacher training, such as the emphasis on regional
contributions described later, are expected toincrease, a reduction in the number of faculty
members is probably a hindrance in many ways. In
addition, corresponding to the reorganization of
education and research organizations which has been
advanced in many national universities, each faculty
member has come to belong to an organization, suchas the institute for education and research consistingof systems and disciplines based on the ﬁelds of study,
while they undertake education and research at thefaculty. In the case of a faculty with teachers fromvarious ﬁelds of study, teachers can belong to
diﬀerent systems or disciplines, which can engender
the fragmentation of organizational identity, and byextension to the decline in a sense of belonging to thefaculty centering on education. Furthermore, with theintroduction of the annual-salary system and thedevelopment of the performance evaluation system,
undergraduate education in which individual
achievements are diﬃcult to present might beslighted, and greater importance could be placed onachieving good research results. In addition, thefoundation of the institute for education and researchis accompanied with the integrated management of
personnel aﬀairs of teachers. Particularly with regard
to the personnel aﬀairs of subject-specializedteachers, when there is a teacher of the same
discipline in other faculties, it is expected that thediscipline in other faculties, it is expected that thenecessity as a full-time teacher at the faculty ofeducation will be subject to severe scrutiny and theﬁlling up of vacancies becomes diﬃcult.
Another concern is the ﬂuctuation of “teacher
education at universities,” or the growth of acentrifugal force that is the demand of educational
policies and school sites. By redeﬁnition of themission, one might emphasize the occupancy rate ofgraduates of the faculty of teacher training in terms ofelementary school teachers who are newly employedby the prefectural government administering the area
in which the faculty is located. This might lead teacher
education to be more oriented toward the teacher
employment examination. The mission also statesclearly that the ratio of faculty members with teachingexperience increases and that all teachers involved inteacher education must have some sort of practicalteaching ability, which might weaken the orientation
toward research. Furthermore, Professional Schools
for Teacher Education have been established one
after another in Faculties of Education at national
universities. Conventional mastersʼ courses at thegraduate school of education have been reduced.
Also, reorganization in the future has been considered.
It is increasingly diﬃcult to produce teachers who
have systematized academic specialization.
The report of the Central Council of Education
released December 2015, “Korekara no gakko kyoiku oninau kyoin no shishitsu noryoku no kojo ni tsuite(Improvement of Quality and Ability of Teachers Who
Shoulder the Responsibility for Future School
Education)” is to strengthen the centrifugal force anddemand for the faculty of education at national
universities further to play a larger role. The reportconveys the necessity for national universities andfaculties of teacher training to take the initiative in
implementing eﬀorts to support new educational
issues. Additionally, it is expected to play a certain role in
the foundation of the council for fostering teachers, theformulation of indexes for fostering teachers, and thedevelopment of teacher training plans. As long as theseregional contributions are illustrated as the evaluationindex of grants for operating expenses, probably there
is no other choice than to be involved in them.
Amid the ﬂuctuation of teachersʼ organizations(decline of centripetal force) and the growth ofexternal demand for teacher education (growth ofcentrifugal force), it is considered important to have aseries of discussions on how to do “teacher education
at university” as the faculty of education, facing withstudents who aim to be teachers. The foundation of
the council for fostering teachers could, in a sense,
make “teacher education at university” moremeaningful and lead undergraduate graduates togrow as teachers who maintain the continuity with
their university days. Internal collaboration opens theway to external collaboration ― I will make eﬀorts
keeping this in mind.

Implication for Reforms of Teacher Education from Germany:
Dilemmas between teachersʼ “Professionality” and ʻProfessionalismʼKemma Tsujino
Associate Professor, Joetsu University of Education

The Curriculum Center for Teachers has invited Professor Dr.
Axel Gehrmann from Technische Universität Dresden as avisiting professor from February of this year. We asked Associate
Professor Kemma Tsujino at Joetsu University of Education who
continued research exchanges with Dr. Gehrmann to tell us thesigniﬁcance of knowing the reality and problems of teacher
education in Germany.

In Germany, major reforms have been taking place acrossthe entire education system since the “PISA shock” in 2001.
Teacher education at university also has experienced ahistoric change. I am currently working at Professional
Schools of Education and feel that I am in the middle of thevortex of educational reform in Japan as well. Therefore, I
shall summarize what I feel based on research in Germany.
In Germany, a sharp ideological distinction exists between“pre-service training” provided before becoming teachers
and the “in-service education” provided after being hired.
The “pre-service training” of teachers consists of the completion of a masterʼs course at graduate school (the ﬁrst stage)
and the subsequent probationary service (the second stage),which is a two-stage trainning of professionals similar to thelegal profession. However, most “in-service education” is leftto each teacherʼs independent judgment because they are
regarded as autonomous professionals who havecompleted the training.
In Professional Schools of Education in Japan, the“pre-service training” of young students who want to beteachers in the future and the “in-service education” ofteacher-students who already have experience as teachers
coexist under the common degree structure with many
compulsory subjects based on the national regulations andthe “Master of Education (profession)”. Furthermore, it isnecessary to assume the responsibility of fostering futureʼsschool leaders. It can be said that the diﬃculty lies in the
structure that guarantees teachersʼ ʻprofessionalismʼ bythose uniﬁed systems in a single uniform manner.

They might all be described using the word “teacher”, but inreality they are extremely diverse, including the types ofschools, such as elementary, lower and upper secondly, andspecial needs schools, and the subjects, and “professionality” isregarded as diﬀerent for each. For that reason, I feel that theattempt to guarantee the ʻprofessionalismʼ in a uniform
manner rather causes a paradoxical situation in which suchvarious “professionality” of teachers cannot be dealt with.
Additionally in Germany, various systems, including theformulation of standards and the school evaluation system,
have been developed in the policies after the “PISA shock”
which assigned emphasis to the “output” of education. In aquite a few of them, the contradiction or diﬃculty became
readily apparent after the implementation. However, what I
feel interesting through a ﬁlter of “Germany seen fromJapan” is that when standards for schools or teachers were
formulated in Germany, there was also a movement todemand for standards for public administration of thecountry (states) and districts (municipalities). After all, thishad not happened. However, because schools have only
limited authority in terms of human resources, materials andassets, and the content of education, it is considered reasonable to ask for proper responsibility to agencies with theauthority for them, including the State Ministry of Education,
the State School Supervisory Agency, and municipalities.
The reform ongoing in Japan has become a megatrend
not only for Professional Schools of Education but also forthe entire school system. Some concern exists that although
the direction of the reform is clear at the ﬁrst sight, therelation between the authority and the responsibility isextremely vague in reality. It is necessary for teachers to makean eﬀort to improve their “professionality”, but how toguarantee ʻprofessionalismʼ simultaneously is a territory withwhich individual teachers have nothing to do. Which bodyhas the authority and responsibility for which territory inpublic education? I myself feel like pursuing it as my future
research topic.

Terminology of Teacher Education

Latest publications from the Curriculum Center for
Teachers (all in Japanese)

Amid growing demand for practical teaching competency,
internship-like programs in pre-service teacher education in
Japan have been increasing in recent years as an opportunity
for students to have experience in the ﬁeld in addition toteaching practice. According to a survey in the “Model Core
Curriculum” project by Japan Association of Universities of
Education, there were only ﬁve cases in 2005 in which“internships” had been introduced into universities/faculties
of education. A report of the Central Council of Education
released in July 2006, the year following, clearly stated theimportance of internships. Another report of the council in
December 2015 indicated that “school internships can be
assigned to part of teaching practice”. They are expected tobe part of the credits necessary for licenses when the
Teaching Personnel Certiﬁcation Act is revised next time.
The contents of internships vary depending on thesituation of the school at which the internship is organized.
However, they diﬀer from teaching practice in some points:(1) long and continuous attachment in school sites; and (2)including numerous participation in scenarios other than theteaching of subjects (club activities, school events, etc.).
Because they have not been standardized as well as thepractice has, they are apt to supply an unpaid, supplementary
work force to schools. To make internships a beneﬁcial
program for students, consideration of the contents andimplementation systems is expected to become an issue.
(Yasuyuki Iwata)■Annual Report of Curriculum Center for Teachers,
Vol. 15 (2016)■Record of the 16th Annual Symposium “21st Century
Academic Ability and the Role of Teachers” (2016)■Activity Report of the Division of Research andDevelopment for In-Service Teachers, Curriculum
Center for Teachers 2015 (2016)

InternshipA list of other publications from the Center is posted on the Japaneseversion of the website. If you wish our publications to be mailed to you,please contact us at currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp.

Introduction of Advisory Board Members
This year, we received guidance and advice from the following external
members of the Advisory Board for research activities of the Center.

FUKUSHIMA, Hirotoshi (Associate Professor, Hirosaki
University)
ISAKA, Shuichi (Principal of Kanagawa Prefectural Hakuyo
High School)
MORITA, Masaki (Professor, Ritsumeikan University)
OTA, Keiko (Principal of Kokubunji City Daigo Elementary
School)TAKANO, Kazuko (Professor, Meiji University)Sites Where Teachers
Are Nurtured

The Project for Curriculum Reform at Primary Level of
Basic Education in Myanmar
Masuda Tomoko
PADECO Co., Ltd.
In Myanmar, a much-talked about country where a new
government was adopted recently, a large-scale
education cooperation project is ongoing by Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA). “The Project for
Curriculum Reform at Primary Level of Basic Education” isto support the development of textbooks for all subjects
in primary education, which PADECO Co., Ltd.,International Development Center of Japan Incorporated(IDCJ), and Kyoiku-Shuppan Co., Ltd. take responsibility
for the implementation. In addition to the developmentof primary textbooks, the project provides the support inteacher education such as dissemination training on the
new primary curriculum and the revision of teacher
education curriculum along with the support to the policy
dialogue among stakeholders in teacher education.
Professor Yasuyuki Iwata of the Curriculum Center for
Teachers of Tokyo Gakugei University has kindly
supported the teacher education component of the
project from the beginning as an external advisor bysharing his research and thoughts in a teacher education
symposium held in Yangon and by accepting the visit of apermanent secretary of Myanmar Ministry of Education to
his university.
The problems that teacher education in Myanmar must
confront are complicated. For memorization-based
education in Myanmar, which has the primary objective oftransferring knowledge, the emphasis is likely to havebeen placed on “which knowledge” to learn rather than“what for” and “how” to learn. For this reason, awarenessof the importance of subject teaching methodology isquite low, and teacher education itself has been paid little
attention to. Currently pre-service primary teacher
education is a one-year course and middle school teacher
education is a two-year course for high school graduates,

which are the shortest teacher education programs
among the ASEAN countries. The need to extend theteacher education courses to four-years had been
discussed but remained unclear without the concretetarget year and measures for realization for the last few
years. However, with a command of the new government
inaugurated in April this year, a policy was announced to
introduce a four-year system to some schools from the
new school term starting in December 2016. Someobservers are skeptical about the realization of thesubstantial institutional reform, speciﬁcally how thecurriculum will be improved and how teacher educators
will be fostered and deployed in such a short period oftime.
While the quality improvement of teacher education is
one issue, the quantitative expansion of teachers is
another. In 2014, a policy was adopted that the number ofteachers per primary school was to increase to at least ﬁve,
irrespective of the number of schoolchildren. The policy
was welcomed in rural areas, where many small-scale
schools provide multi-grade teaching. However, it was
dealt with by hiring numerous temporary daily-wage
teachers at once without any teacher training: 80,000
teachers were hired in two years, which has caused
another problem such as how to respond to the vast needsof in-service teacher training and how to cope with theimbalance of the teachersʼ age structure.
The promotion system by which teachers are promoted
from primary school teacher to junior high school teacher,and then to high school teacher has created circumstancesthat teachers who have little experience or who are unable
to be promoted always take charge of classes at primaryschools: 40 percent of primary school teachers have three
years of experience or less. This means that teachingexperience and the outcomes of in-service teacher
training are not accumulated in teachers who teach at
primary schools.
Teacher education reform is not an easy task because
problems of quantity and quality of teachers and teacher
management such as promotion and deployment system
are closely linked. Under such circumstances the projectcontinues to exert eﬀorts to strengthen teacher education
focusing on nurturing practical ability to conduct lessons
through reforming subject teaching methodology.

Events Calendar

Saturday, July 16, 2016 13:00-16:00
Visiting Professorʼs Lecture““Report on Education” at each level of federal, state, and local
governments in Germany”
Professor Dr. Axel Gehrmann (Technische Universität Dresden)
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Workshop for Practicing Teacher Education
Saturday, December 3, 2016
The 17th Annual Symposium
All events will be held within the Koganei Campus of Tokyo Gakugei
University. Detailed information related to the holding of the events (inJapanese) will be posted on the website of the Center as needed. If you
need information in English, please contact the Center.
Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director
MAYAMA, Shigeki(Professor, Phylogeny and Taxonomy)
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)

編集・発行
The CCT is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
東京学芸大学教員養成カリキュラム開発研究センター
Tokyo Gakugei University.
編集協力
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
東京学芸大学／美術・書道講座／青山司研究室／青山司／大浦恵実

Designer: Tsukasa Aoyama and Emi Oura

＊ご不要の方はその旨を以下の連絡先にお知らせください。
(Aoyama Lab., Calligraphy and Arts, Tokyo Gakugei University)

Curriculum
Center for Terachers, Tokyo Gakugei University
184-8501 東京都小金井市貫井北町４−１−１
4-1-1
Nukui-kitamachi
Koganei, Tokyo 184-8501 Japan
東京学芸大学教員養成カリキュラム開発研究センター
Tel:
81-42-329-7776
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Tel: 042-329-7776 Fax: 042-329-7786
Email:
currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp
E-mail: currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp
Website:http://www.u-gakugei.ac.j/~currict/english/index.html
Web: http://www.u-gakugei.ac.jp/~currict/index.html