We are all aware of the fact that Astronomy teaching is not an easy task for many different reasons which we are going to examine during this Colloquium. The present contribution focuses on one of these reasons we consider of major importance for Astronomy in the school: Teacher Training.

Teacher training has been debated extensively for a long time and discussion is being presently livened up.

Institutions and associations are promoting research, studies and comparisons on this issue. For instance, the Osnabriick conference “Teacher Education in Europe: Evaluation and Perspectives” (June 1995) – the International Forum of Rome (September 1995) and, specially devoted to Astronomy, the EU/ESO Workshop “Astronomy teaching in the European secondary school” (Garching, 1994), SAIt Workshop in Reggio Calabria “European Science Teacher Training” (September 1995), Conferences of Teaching Astronomy in Spain, the Constitutional Conference of the European Association for Astronomy Education (EAAE, Athens, 1995).

It is difficult to treat Astronomy teacher training without including it in a more general context. Teacher training does not only mean providing teachers with suitable teaching skills for each subject. First of all, teachers should bear in mind the interaction with a social and cultural reality that may affect learning processes. And the educational (and teaching) system is not neutral to the external framework. European and non-European countries have their own national differences with different school systems and choices made in the field of teacher training. Time does not allow us to go in detail into a comparison of the various solutions adopted in different countries.