German teacher training is no longer up to date

The German education system is in one of the biggest crises in history, and teacher training is being blamed for this. While some federal states are already taking new approaches and reforming teacher training, there are reservations about this, especially from the perspective of associations, because the quality of existing teacher training is at risk. This argument has one major flaw: we know nothing about the quality of teacher training in Germany.

There are no studies in any state or at the federal level that clarify what effect teacher training has on students’ learning performance. But ultimately, it is precisely this influence on learning performance that matters – school is there for the children. Given that nothing is known about the effectiveness of teacher training in Germany, the current debate appears mythical, anecdotal, and ideological.

It is interesting to first take a look at the international research situation. In “Visible Learning”, the largest data set in empirical educational research, nine meta-analyses with over 250 studies on teacher training from the last twenty years are evaluated with the clear result that teacher training worldwide has almost no effect on the learning performance of students. In other words: years of training at universities and schools are almost ineffective when it comes to building students’ skills.

This leads New Zealand education researcher John Hattie to describe teacher training as the most distressed institution in the world. One must always be careful when applying international research results to individual countries. Education in particular is extremely culture- and country-specific. Nevertheless, these results are striking.

If you look at studies on teacher training in Germany, you will find aspects that are only directly or not at all related to the learning performance of students. For example, there are comprehensive studies on the motivation of student teachers. This can be beneficial or detrimental to a teacher’s biography, but it is not at all certain whether it has a lasting effect on learning performance.

More revealing is the teacher funnel of the Donors’ Association for the German Economy, which shows that almost 40 percent of all teaching candidates throw in the towel during the course of teacher training.

From an economic perspective, this result is a disaster. Teacher surveys are similarly distressing when it comes to the usefulness of teacher training. Many students say that the course is too far removed from practice. Here too, caution is needed with regard to the scope of the results, because students often do not and cannot see the bigger picture. And yet: if the objections have been the same for decades and similar complaints can be heard from experts in the field, then it is time to think carefully about the usefulness of the content of teacher training.

Much of what is taught at universities may be very interesting from a technical point of view, but when it comes to teaching, many things are simply meaningless. The assessments of the second phase of teacher training, which is determined by seminar leaders who put their ideas of teaching above all else, are particularly dramatic. For many trainee teachers, this is stressful and is perceived as being patronized.

“Now forget everything you learned at university” is not an invented greeting at the start of the traineeship, but unfortunately not uncommon in everyday seminar life. As a result, more myths than truths dominate in the second phase. Evidence that is laboriously obtained at universities does not make it into practice, and many trainees are not optimally prepared for their later work.

If we take these results seriously, we must conclude that teacher training is increasingly unable to meet its requirements with regard to the education of children and young people. This is shown not least by the fact that over the last ten years, learning performance in international comparative studies such as PISA has steadily declined.

In the last survey, the proportion of particularly weak students reached a record high, amounting to around 30 percent in mathematics, around 26 percent in reading and around 23 percent in science. Of course, the school system is not solely responsible for this educational misery. Families and society as a whole must rethink what position education can and should have today. But it must be one of the tasks of schools to teach the next generation the basic skills in reading, arithmetic and writing.

In the light of the findings, one cannot help but put one’s finger on the sore spot and say clearly: teacher training must be reformed. To date, it has not managed to combine theory and practice – both of which are important for teacher training – in such a way that the learning process becomes meaningful for the prospective teachers.

It places a one-sided emphasis on teaching specialist skills and overlooks the importance of pedagogical and didactic skills, which are only taught in a rudimentary manner at universities. The latter, however, are essential for bringing the necessary specialist skills to life in the classroom and making them effective.

And current teacher training fails to recognize in a downright naive way that the core of teacher professionalism lies not in the dimensions of knowledge, but in attitude. How teachers think about what they do, how they can justify it, what goals they pursue, what content they convey, what methods they choose and what media they use, all of this is a prerequisite for educationally effective and therefore good teaching.

Only rarely is any of this rooted in teacher training; instead, the role is understood as being that of a lone fighter. In almost all of the exams that have to be taken in teacher training, individual performance still dominates. The research on teacher professionalism is going in a completely different direction.

This is referred to as “collective efficacy expectations,” which is also one of the factors with the greatest impact in “Visible Learning”: thinking together about school and lessons as a staff, formulating clear goals together and evaluating them regularly, without being constrained, but still having binding guidelines. Hardly anyone knows about this factor, not just in schools, it is not even common at universities.

We should therefore not over-stretch or even exaggerate what has proven successful in teacher training, but rather use it as a basis for improving teacher training and making it fit for the future.

Klaus Zierer is Professor of School Education at the University of Augsburg.