Simply good teaching

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Hans Berner. Simply good teaching

A short preface to “Simply good teaching” by Andreas and Tuyet Helmke

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A short preface to “Simply good teaching” by Andreas and Tuyet Helmke

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In the last twenty years, a concept of competence has prevailed and established itself in educational science which clearly includes this performance aspect and is mostly used in references to formulations by Franz E. Weinert and Eckhard Klieme. Weinert describes competence as “an individual’s inherently available or learnable cognitive capabilities and skills to solve certain problems, as well as the related motivational, volitional and social readiness and skills to apply problem solutions in variable situations successfully and responsibly.”17 Klieme considers competence in relation to educational standards and concludes “that educational standards – other than curricula and framework guidelines – do not fall back on syllabi and lists of learning content to substantiate educational objectives. Competences reflect the fundamental action requirements to which students are exposed in this domain.”18 These definitions clearly expose the trajectory of the current competence movement: it is a question of “dead knowledge” and “how one can get others (or oneself) to effectively apply concepts, ideas, or indeed knowledge, and put them into practical action …”19.

In summary, it can be said that the term competence currently references what Chomsky described as performance in linguistics, namely the ability to master situationally-influenced challenges, or, in other words, to perform actions that are visible and measurable. Thus, the concept of competence complies with the current educational reform whereby the performance of the school is not directed through input, “but – just as in a business enterprise – is to be measured using the actual realized learning gains, the output.”20

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