What Makes a Teacher? An Introduction to the Science of Education

There is a growing interest in education today, and also many perceived educational problems in Japan. For example, there are juvenile delinquency, school violence, domestic violence, truancy, apathy syndrome, drop in scholastic ability, poor family education, and so on. It is important to continue to study the science of education to try to reduce these problems. There are various fields of education, such as educational philosophy, educational principle, educational psychology, school systems, teaching methods, curriculum, evaluation, and so on. Based upon these, I would like to pick up many important questions about education and give some comments on them simply and clearly. This is a textbook designed for college students on the theme of "What makes a teacher?" Here I would like to ask students to consider these questions and discuss them. I hope that the textbook will be helpful for students to grasp an outline of the science of education and discuss today's educational questions in groups.