Teacher education has often been subject to various (contradictory)
educational policies and the influences of lobbies.
The rebuilding of the educational system in the Federal Republic after
the Second World War in fact was a reconstruction of the situation
before the Third Reich, not a renewal. The predominant characteristic of
that reconstruction was the tripartite school system, with the normal
types of a unified primary school (1-4 or 1-6) and the three types
of secondary schools: Volksschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium.
Traditionally, teaching in elementary schools was viewed as a vocation
for which one must acquire not only some knowledge of content but also
some teaching skill. Such pedagogical knowledge was seen as a result of
special training provided in a new type of institution: "teacher-preparing
seminaries."
Mental arithmetic and arithmetic, natural philosophy and selected topics
of algebra and geometry were parts of the examination, but the most important
and explicitly noted goal was the formation of socially desired habits
for citizens and the future work force, including the necessary working
attitudes. Obedience under the strict rules of arithmetic was seen as supporting
law-and-order thinking. Elementary school teachers were mainly public
servants with disciplinary tasks - pedagogues.
With the establishment of the compulsory unified primary school after the
civil revolution in 1918, the teacher seminaries were partly complemented
by or transformed into "teacher high schools" or pedagogical
academies, like American teachers colleges. The education of primary and
elementary teachers was nearly the same and stuck to the former traditions:
a general schooling with strict syllabi and state-controlled regulations.
The final examination at the pedagogical academies was not recognized as
equivalent to the German Abitur. The struggle to get an academically
oriented and scientifically acknowledged education lasted until the 1960s.
From the beginning of the institutionalization of the Gymnasium the
teacher was seen as scientist and public servant. Based on the humanistic
ideal of education, Humboldt's concept of Bildung became the paramount
goal of human intellectual and individual mental development, and very
influential on this type of teacher education. Bildung was interpreted
as the totality of knowledge and judgement ability, and as the process
of education at the same time. Mathematics as an important science played
a dual role in this concept: It provided essential subjects of Bildung
and through the development of mathematical thinking and reasoning represented
the learning process at its most advanced level. The concept of Bildung
established a unity of science and education, of research and instruction.
The concept of Bildung made it obvious that the future teacher of
the Gymnasium (and later of the newly founded Realschule as well) had to
pursue scientific studies at the university level and acquire the full
range of scientific knowledge available there. (In addition, the Gymnasium
became the work place for famous mathematicians, as there were only few
other state-offered positions.)
Two phases were established for the formation of the Gymnasium teacher:
theoretical studies at the university in mathematics (and another
subject) and some philosophy, and practical teaching experience
(as part of the education) under the guidance of master teachers
in seminaries and at schools.
The first state examination was the precondition for students preparing
to teach in higher secondary schools to attend the second phase, separated
from universities and under the full control of the state. The future teacher
started an "apprenticeship in teaching," which finished with
a second state examination.
Mathematics teacher education in Germany has undergone several historical
periods of reform and revisions of reforms that only referred to one or
the other of the two branches of teacher education. Attempts to create
a comprehensive system of teacher education first started in the 1970s
and have not been generally applied. For a while, the field of teacher
preparation received considerable attention generated by political authorities
and implemented through legislation and regulation. A shortage of teachers
of mathematics brought common efforts together to improve the personal
and organizational conditions of teacher preparation and the teacher's
professional life.
Political aims and conditions for the reform
The reform of mathematics instruction in schools from 1968 had the
following goals:
The crucial and decisive novum of this political decision was
the fact that school mathematics in all school types was primarily regarded
as an unity. This view became a basis for attempts at general integration
but referred this integration to the curricular level: The integration
of the three educational tracks should not be done via a restructuring
of the tripartite system but via the development of a comprehensive
mathematical curriculum, common and unified but differentiated, for all
school types: mathematics for all!
The need to reform the teacher education system followed from these goals:
The development toward the teacher as subject matter specialist
for all school types; as well as the cautious attempts toward the establishment
of models for comprehensive schools made mathematics education and
teacher education a political and economic issue.
Consequences were drawn in the Frankenthaler Beschlüsse (Frankenthal
Decisions) of the KMK in 1970. They aimed at stronger assimilation
of all teacher-training tracks. In particular, the teachers of the elementary
school, now Hauptschule (modern school), became subject matter
specialists; their education became organized into two phases in analogy
to the higher secondary teacher training: The academic studies provided
by pedagogical academies or institutes were turned into a more theoretical
and more scientific phase complemented by a practical phase at the Hauptseminare
and Fachseminare (seminaries for relating general didactics and
subject matter didactics to practical teaching) under the supervision of
the school administration and the direction of experienced teachers.
Students preparing to teach in the higher secondary schools, (including
technical and vocational colleges) on the other hand, had to pass a larger
part of their university studies in the education department. A certain
range of knowledge in educational and social sciences - in particular,
in psychology, pedagogy, and finally mathematics didactics, too
- was required by regulation in some states.
Although after the Frankenthaler Beschlüsse, all states
had shared the intention of generally unifying teachers' qualifications
and their training, the single states followed their agreements in different
ways and at different times. Some of the traditional teacher education
systems for the primary and modern school teachers first got graduate rights
(Ph.D., Habilitation) and a university-like status, with the Abitur
as a precondition for admittance.
The professional teaching staff at the pedagogical academies was increased
in a very short time to an unexpected extent. Gymnasium teachers and experienced
teachers from other school types, as well as graduates from the university
departments of mathematics, applied for posts at the pedagogical academies,
and so the old traditions of mathematics education gradually converged
by adaptation and assimilation to new common views on school mathematics
at these institutions first. In addition, the staff for the newly created
seminaries of the second practical phase of teacher education had to be
recruited.
The community of educators professionally concerned with mathematics
education became an influential group, participating and being actively
involved in curriculum development on the level of programs and syllabi,
textbook production, and research. At the beginning, however, the urgent
problems that arose from the KMK decisions and the time limits for
the transforming of the new goals into mathematics curricula caused mathematics
educators to confine themselves to a practical engineering model of
designing and constructing sequences of concrete teaching units for school
mathematics. There was little interest in starting basic theoretical research
or in participating in the exchange or discussion of developments in other
countries.
The ambitious goal of teaching mathematics to all pupils, principally
accepted by the KMK decisions, reinforced the insight on the part
of the politicians, too, that the teaching and learning of mathematics
should be scientifically investigated and that the results of research
on teaching and learning mathematics should be transmitted to all teachers
as well. The foundation of a central Institute for Didactics of Mathematics
(IDM) by the VW Foundation took over many of these tasks and created a
network of international relationships and cooperation.
The training of the future teacher of secondary mathematics at the university
had to be first supplemented and then complemented by studies in didactics
of mathematics (Fachdidaktik Mathematik). The VW Foundation granted
the first chair (an ordinary professorship in didactics of mathematics);
other universities were allowed to establish chairs, too. Regular studies
in didactics of mathematics were required in addition to mathematical studies
in study programs, the model of practical teaching periods from pedagogical
academies was adopted for the university studies, and regular studies in
educational and social sciences were added as parallel parts of their university
studies for all kinds of teachers. This marked a strong effort to broaden
and improve the pedagogical, psychological, and sociological knowledge
of all preservice students and its acceptance as a prerequisite of professional
teaching. More importantly, it helped to establish and enhance fundamental
research in mathematics education as an interdisciplinary science at the
university level, installed and cooperating frequently within departments
of education, more rarely within departments of mathematics (but this differs
among the universities).
The necessity for research in mathematics education was acknowledged
by establishing scientific studies at all institutions of teacher education
in the first phase. Consequently, the transmission of theoretical knowledge
into practical action should be enhanced for all teachers, too. Therefore
the second (practical) phase of teacher training, a peculiarity of the
German system and so far provided only for the future teacher of the higher
secondary schools, was enlarged and extended for modern and primary teacher
training. The second phase was organized into an integrating "main"
seminar for all teachers of one region. This seminar was devoted to general
didactics and common aspects of the professional activity of the future
teachers, and the region also provided specific seminars devoted to school
subjects that were run by subject specialist teacher trainers. The confronting
of traditions and innovations made it obvious that the traditional model
of apprenticeship applied so far for this phase had become obsolete.
There was a new conception of providing practical knowledge of the profession
by explication and generalization of the practical experiences and
theories of practice.
The history of teacher education reform in Germany impels us to move carefully and to make judgements about developments that are worth noting, analyzing, and studying. There are a small number of professionally derived reform efforts that have the promise of making things easier. There are still unsolved - or even untackled - but relevant problems: