English EditionNo. 19

July 2018

Another Hidden Reform Principle

Kazuo Maeda

Rikkyo University
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum Center for Teachers
Regarding teachersʼ capability formation andprofessional diﬃculties, the criticism has arisen thatsome teachers have insuﬃcient qualities and abilities
or practical leadership. In the wake of that criticism, it
has been some time since the reform of teacher
education at colleges and teacher training after
recruitment began to be discussed. Many local
governments have also participated in teacher
education directly or indirectly at colleges. In thename of reform, the institutionalization of teacher
education and training has progressed. It seems thatthe greater the degree to which the content isformally consolidated, the longer the training term
becomes and the more the content becomes“specialized.” Before the results of one system are fully
validated, another system is envisioned.
In the mid-80s, quite some time ago, I participatedin a collaborative study that speciﬁcally examinedteachers graduating from Nagano Teacherʼs School in
1931. The study subjectsʼ age exceeded 80 years by
the time of the study. The teachers had lived throughthe historical turbulence of the Showa Era: theyreceived elementary school education inﬂuenced byliberal education during the Taisho Era, experienced
economic depression while in education school to theperiod of beginning their respective teaching careers,
and were engaged in wartime education through war
defeat to postwar education as middle-career
teachers. Later, they advanced into managerial
positions during boom times and left their respective
careers. The study in which I participated wasdesigned to elucidate some moments or factors intheir experiences for younger teachers to foster theircompetency. It was compiled into the Teachersʼ LifeCourse, edited by Tadahiko Inagaki (University ofTokyo Press, 1988).
Around Nagano Prefecture, I was able to elicit many
noteworthy ﬁndings. For example, a group of teachers
in charge of students of the same school grade in aschool was examined: the teachers grew based on theschool; they met their model teachers such as seniorcolleagues; they reconﬁrmed the meanings and rolesof a school by being engaged in rural education; theirencounters with children with disabilities broughtsome change into their images of children; scholarshipand art were respected apart from studying
educational materials; they were also developing
themselves even if they got into middle management;
and they had been thoroughly trained in a leading
school in a community. Conclusively, the starting
school was found to have had an important meaningfor each teacherʼs development.
I do not think that the ﬁndings with no change aretrue of the modern education not only because ages
and conditions diﬀer but also because the paradigm ofeducation has changed greatly. Nevertheless, someprinciples appear to be common among the concrete
ﬁndings for teachers to develop their competency (notonly when they acquire their educational skills but also
when their ideas of teachers, children, classes,
educational materials and human beings are diverted
and deepened by their actual experiences). They arethree principles: self-motivation, formality, andconcreteness. After all, they want it from themselves,
not always informal scenes, and consistently in aconcrete way. They can be aware of their own
problems, can approach them not superﬁcially but
multilaterally, and can realize them easily, leading tothe depth that allows them to reform themselves.
Therefore, “how education should be” is a subject of
exploration as well as “how to teach.”
After all, “forced practice” in an obscured power
relationship does not result in playersʼ qualities andabilities. From my experience as director of theuniversity baseball team winning the All-Japan
University Baseball Championship last year and from thecurrent circumstances in which fellowship in a schooland “team school” are required, it seems that they needto guarantee another hidden reform principle forpeople and organizations to develop themselves.

New Graduate School of Teacher Education at Tokyo Gakugei University
Focusing on the Program for Teaching Subject Areas
Tokyo Gakugei University is planning to reorganize the Graduate School of Teacher Education in 2019. There, the“program for teaching subject areas” is to be newly established. We asked Dr. Kenji Hara, who is in charge of subject
speciﬁc subjects at the university, to summarize and outline of the program and the background of its establishment.
The movement to shift the role of school education from “theacquisition of content” to “the fostering of competency” is now
accelerating on a global scale. In Japan, the School Education
Law was revised in 2007, in which the so-called “three elementsof academic ability” were given legal force. This has invited
discussions in various places on the new theory of academic
ability and the roles that school education should play. The
content was organized in “Ikuseisubeki shishitsu/noryoku ofumaeta kyoikumokuhyo/naiyo to hyoka no arikata ni kansuru
kentokai (Investigative Commission on Educational Goals andContents and the Assessment Based on Competency to Be
Fostered)” established in December 2012 and reﬂected in theamendment of the Education Personnel Certiﬁcation Law(November 2016) and the revision of Course of Study (notiﬁedto elementary and junior high schools in March 2017 and tohigh schools in March 2018.)
Amid the educational reform, how universities of teacher
training should be in the future was discussed at “Kokuritsu
kyoinyoseidaigaku/gakubu, daigakuin, fuzokugakko no kaikaku
ni kansuru yushikishakaigi (Expert Panel on Reform of National
Teacher Training Universities and Faculties, Graduate Schools,and Aﬃliated Schools)” (“the expert panel”) established inAugust 2016 and summarized in the form of problems andcountermeasures toward “Kyoin no genshoki ni okeru
kyoinyosei/kenshu kino no kyoka ni mukete (Toward
Strengthening of Functions of Teacher Education and Training
during Declining Demand for Teachers)” (August 2017;
hereinafter “the expert panel report”). The expert panel report
describes that future graduate schools of teacher educationmust play the following roles: (1) take the lead in enhancing all
educating functions at the university, including faculties; (2)support professional growth throughout oneʼs teaching career,
not only strengthening pre-service teacher education, but also
education and training functions for in-service teachers; (3) toprovide various places of learning responding ﬂexibly todemands of society, such as setting up courses to educate
management and courses to learn subject areas; and (4) to be abase to improve the quality at school sites through solving
problems that schools actually have using the “coming andgoing between theory and practice” approach, which is afeature of graduate schools of teacher education.
In light of the domestic trends explained above, I think thatthe reorganization into the new Graduate School of Teacher
Education aims to clarify the stance of the university that plays aleading role in educational reform in Japan by re-equipping
maneuverability and practical workability to cope with theso-called “realization of a curriculum that is open to society.”
The new Graduate School of Teacher Education is expected toconsist of the following 5 programs and 17 subprograms (fromthe 2018 information session for the Graduate School of Teacher
Education.)(1) Program for school organizational management[※ In-service teachers only](2) Program for comprehensive educational practice(3) Program for teaching subject areas [Japanese, social
studies, mathematics, science, music, art, calligraphy, P.E.,
technology, home economics, English, information,kindergarten, Yogo teacher](4) Program for sophisticating special needs education(5) Program for education projects [Problems of school
education, international understanding/multicultural
coexistence education, environmental education]

The program for teaching subject areas oﬀers a curriculumthat aims to foster practical teaching ability connecting thesubject contents and the teaching methods at a high level, inaddition to specialized understanding of sciences andfundamentals forming the basis for subjects and areas (from the2018 information session for the Graduate School of Teacher
Education.) Requirements for completion are school attendance
for two years or more and earning of 46 credits or more.
[1] Major compulsory subjects [10 credits from 5 subjects]
Area (1): Area related to the organization andimplementation of curriculum → “Curriculumdesign”, etc.
Area (2): Area related to practical teaching methods ofsubjects → “Lesson practice and research”, etc.
Area (3): Area related to student guidance and educationalcounseling → “Understanding and support forchildren”, etc.
Area (4): Area related to classroom management andschool management → “School organizational
management for teachers”, etc.
Area (5): Area related to how school education andteachers should be → “Social roles and careerdevelopment of teachers”, etc.
[2] Program compulsory subjects [6 credits from 3 subjects]
Basic subject, Seminar I and Seminar II(The aim of Seminars is to review teaching professional
practice and connect its contents with project study)[3] Advanced elective subjects [3 to 5 subjects from eachprogram and subprogram]Distinctive specialized subjects (elective) are oﬀered foreach program (subprogram). Taking subjects crossing
programs and subprograms is possible.
[4] Teaching professional practice [10 credits][5] Project study [4 credits]
Students themselves set up the awareness of the issue andproblems from school sites, do exploration to improve andsolve the problems, and organize the results.
The expert panel refers to the need for courses in which one
learns the contents of subject areas at a graduate school ofteacher education, calling them “a matter to be promptlyaddressed.” Attention must be devoted to the fact that thesubject area course is regarded as diﬀerent from the existing
masterʼs “course to learn the content of an individual subject
preﬁxed the name of the subject” because it is the “course tolearn the cross-subject or combined-subject content inconformity with the actual situations of children.” (p. 22 in theexpert panel report). Psychology clariﬁes that human
intelligence and learning depend strongly on the context andsituation and that they are therefore not so easily used in
diﬀerent situations. This inference in turn suggests that even if
excellent knowledge and skills peculiar to each discipline aretaught, they cannot be transferred to graduate studentsʼ ability
as teachers without doing something. In addition, the wording“cross-subject or combined subjects” is regarded as based on
the revised School Education Law that deﬁned genericcompetency as “academic ability.” For new demands of society
such as this, how should the new Graduate School of Teacher
Education and the program for teaching subject areas besubstantiated? I expect the Curriculum Center for Teachers totake the lead in answering that question.
Kenji Hara
Natural Science Division, Tokyo Gakugei University

Possibilities and Challenges of Institutional Research
Related to Teacher Education
Megumi Hayasaka Akikusa Gakuen Junior College
The term “evidence-based” has increasingly been usedin the ﬁeld of education. The evidence-based label signiﬁesthat something is established on scientiﬁc grounds, such as
veriﬁable statistical data, in policy-making anddecision-making.
This article speciﬁcally addresses possibilities andchallenges, with emphasis on “institutional research (IR)”specialized in teacher education as an attempt at research
practice based on evidence.
By presenting results of data analysis, IR aims to support
higher education institutions in making decisions toimprove teaching and learning as well as management.
The general role of departments in charge of IR is to amass
existing data related to entrance examinations, grades,
employment, and ﬁnancial aﬀairs, and survey data fromstudents and to present results of analysis according to therequest of the institution.
In fact, IR related to teacher education was considered ina pioneering way in the “Institutional Research Division” of
the “HATO Project/Teacher Education Renaissance:
Building a Support System to Advance Teacher Education
through University Partnership”, a project supported by theJapanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology through a Grant for Strengthening
National University Reforms in February 2013. ProjectHATO was an acronym, formed of the ﬁrst letters of each of
Hokkaido University of Education, Aichi University ofEducation, Tokyo Gakugei University, and Osaka Kyoiku
University. The author was personally involved in thepractical business at Tokyo Gakugei University from
October 2013 to when the project was completed in March2018. Actually, IR in the HATO project was aimed mainly atimproving teaching and learning, with concentrated
eﬀorts on designing and implementing questionnaire
surveys for universities of education. Regarding survey
design, eﬀorts were made to combine items comparablewith general university students (e.g., learning experiences,living hours, worries) and items specialized in teacher
education (e.g., choice to be a teacher, reasons forapplication, teacher eﬃcacy).

Possibilities of IR related to teacher education lie inguaranteeing the autonomy of universities for quality
assurance of teacher education. Not only is IR compatible
with the PDCA cycle; it can serve simultaneously as alubricant. For example, discussions related tointerpretations of analytical results provided by IR (e.g., thenumber of would-be teachers declines during thesophomore year), as well as discussions aimed atformulation of further goals, engender autonomous
decision-making for quality assurance of teacher training
education. When teachers and other staﬀ members face tothe principle of “teacher education at university” seriously,
IR will be an important tool. After the HATO project wascompleted, it was expected to expand the improvement ofteaching and learning more broadly based on IR-likeapproaches for other universities oﬀering teacher
education programs. Forming the basis of autonomous
improvement in universities without losing the diversity
and individuality of teacher training education is apossibility and a challenge of IR.
Future challenges are to relativize characteristics of oneʼsown university and to collect highly objective data.
Although many universities of education practice IR,
relative understanding of characteristics of own university
will persist as a challenge into the future. For that reason,
implementation of collaborative surveys aimed atcomparing oneʼs own university with other universities isneeded in terms of student surveys. It is certain thatcooperation with other competitive universities will
present diﬃculty. Even so, means of cooperating should besought to collect comparable data continually.
The “evidence” that the term “evidence-based” originallyindicated is objective and scientiﬁc fact grounded on thepremise of causality. By contrast, studentsʼ awareness andbehavior asked in questionnaire surveys of the HATO
project do not go beyond subjectivity. To verify teacher
education scientiﬁcally from now on, what should be
regarded as “evidence”? IR in the ﬁeld of teacher education,in which the HATO project was the ﬁrst instance, isprobably the ﬁrst step to spark the debate.

Terminology of Teacher Education

Introduction of Advisory BoardMembers

The Central Council of Educationʼs report (December 21,2015) proposed that “teachersʼ capability index” should be
set up in counsel between education boards of prefecturesand government-designated cities that have authority overpersonnel issues of teachers and neighboring universities
that oﬀer teacher education programs. This aims to consider
the teacher development, appointment, and training ofteachers in a uniﬁed manner and to support their learning
through their whole career. It is intended to clarify thecharacteristics and abilities that should be acquired in eachstage of pre-service education, appointment, starting
career, and thereafter, and to demonstrate them with theirsupport policies. In accordance with the report, the Special
Act for Educational Personnel was enacted in November
2016. It was drawn up mainly by each educational board.
Because some are based on what had been discussed
between an educational board and a university from theearly 21st century, such as “Teachers standard inFukushima,” and others organized conferences to begin
discussing them after the enactment, their approaches varydepending on the region. (Yasuyuki Iwata)This year, we received guidance andadvice from the following external membersof the Advisory Board for research activitiesof the Center.

Teachersʼ Capability Index

Hirotoshi Fukushima(Professor, Hirosaki University)
Shigemi Hatano(Principal, Hanakoganei Minami Junior HighSchool)
Kazuo Maeda(Professor, Rikkyo University)
Masaki Morita(Professor, Ritsumeikan University)Sites Where Teachers
Are Nurtured
Shigemi HatanoPrincipal, Hanakoganei Minami Junior High School,
Kodaira City, Tokyo
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum
Center for Teachers

My teaching career started in 1989. I fondly
recall learning many things from experienced
teachers and many things that I have learned
together with students while facing many
diﬃculties. As a music teacher, I have worked for
22 years not only teaching lessons, but also
lending guidance to school brass bands andchoruses while educating younger teachers.
Education of younger teachers was notconducted in a systematic way at that time.
Because each junior high school had only one
music teacher, I educated younger teachers
through workshops outside school and joint
concerts with the neighboring schools. From
serving as a subject (music) researcher in theTokyo Metropolitan Government and producing
results in club activities, I began to haveconﬁdence in myself. After obtaining evidence toback up my thought that my own unvoiced
opinions formed during practicing teaching were
not wrong, I became conscious of educating
younger teachers. I wanted students to feel thejoy, inspiration, and energy of music throughlessons and club activities. I also wanted to let
younger teachers know teaching methods that
led students to believe that music is attractive
and led them to be involved in it throughout life.
In reality, my guidance was not conveyed soeasily to younger teachers, which brought me no
actual feeling that I was educating teachers. Evenso, I feel pleased that student teachers andstudents whom I met every day will grow up to
become good teachers later on.
Today, after moving into a managerial position,
I give guidance or advice to younger teachers
while being conscious that it will help them be
active as my work partners. I am conscious of thefollowing points in the process of developing
human resources.
It is important for teachers to practice daily life
guidance, to understand students, and to create
calm learning environments, as well as toproduce schools in which students can feelsecure. I would like teachers to impose toughguidance on wrongdoing, but to consider theemotions that underlie and cause the acts andkeep watch until one is able to conﬁrm whether
the student is convinced by the guidance.
Next, teachers are expected to introduce thespecialized nature of subjects and theattractiveness and depth of their teachingsubjects and to provide dreams for students. To
this end, teachers must have willingness to learn
about the points necessary to improve their
specialization further. At the same time, they areobligated to acquire teaching methods and skills
that convey that specialized nature of subjects
and the attractiveness and depth of theirteaching subject to students.
I hope teachers acquire abilities not to nurture
students within a framework, which is the way it
should be, but to challenge and open the way bythemselves with positive conceptions and ideas.
However, if the ability to think various
possibilities is missing, then it could be a mere
reckless run. Although the ability to think might
be improved through various experiences, they
are likely to become nervous.
I would like teachers to be human beings who
are warm, trusted, and respectable, and to be
humble and challenging of themselves. Goingfurther, I think that the highest caliber of humanbeings themselves might be teachers.

Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director
MAYAMA, Shigeki(Professor, Phylogeny and Taxonomy)
Center Researchers[Division of Curriculum Research and Development]
KANEKO, Mariko(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)

The・CCT編集
発行is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
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Gakugei University.
東京学芸大学教員養成カリキュラム開発研究センター
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
編集協力
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