Teacher’s Professionalism
Teacher’s professionalism is characterized by three standards that a teacher should possess. They should be cultivators of all-round growth, Inspirational co-constructors of knowledge and committed role models of professionalism. Each standard of professionalism is widely defined and explained through aspects such as threshold, competent and distinguished aspects. The report constitutes the analysis of teachers’ professionalism based on a chosen theme, integration of learning from individual investigation and personal reflection on the selected theme, and the strategies of performing as a professional teacher based on the selected theme.
Critical Analysis
In the light of the existing literature on teacher’s professionalism, Evans (2008), defined teacher’s professionalism as the identification and expression of what is expected and required of members of the teacher’s profession. It involves meeting specific standards needed in the education sector and its related proficiency. Teachers, therefore, have several set standards that they need to meet for them to qualify them to perform well in the teaching industry adequately. Demirkasmoglu (2003), on the other hand gave the basic steps needed to the attainment of professionalism and the very first step is the knowledge base. Acquiring the required teacher’s professionalism knowledge requires proper advanced education and training, whereby the teachers will be equipped with all the necessary skills and knowledge that will help them function well in their careers. This in turn, will help them offer their services in a very professional way, thus making them fruitful in their work. There are also several intellectual skills that the teachers are taught during their training, which will make them successful in delivering teaching services to their students. The unique knowledge and skills offered should also be grounded in research and practice in the field. They have to be equipped with skills that other people have been able to use in the practical teaching field and have worked for them. This is achieved by conducting several types of research to ensure that it is true that those skills worked and also the possibility of those skills working for general teachers should be assessed. Examples of the dos include things such as treating people with respect, irrespective of their ages. Even correcting a student needs to be done ethically.
According to Goodlad (1996), a teacher’s professionalism is not something one gets on a silver platter. It is earned. There are certain things that one need to do to earn the professionalism. There are certain professional actions and behaviors that one needs to possess to earn professionalism. This begins with the kind of clothes that they wear to different things that they are supposed to do and not to do. They also need to be on time. Coming late for classes and also in other activities makes them inefficient and ineffective in their endeavors to provide students with the essential teaching services. Another one is the maintenance of confidentiality. Teachers need to maintain a high level of confidentiality for confidential information. Examples of sensitive information include the HIV status of a child. Unless permitted by the student, they are not allowed to spread such information.
Teachers are not allowed to treat students unfairly, no matter what the circumstance. They are also not allowed to dress inappropriately, which will affect how students will receive their content. Goodlad’s attempt to explain about professionalism has somehow failed because it was not well inclusive. His summary mostly shows what the teacher needs to do and what not to do to earn a teacher’s professionalism. There was a great need to consider what the teacher possesses naturally. For instance, there are those teachers who are born with talent and the ability to perform well in the teaching field. They possess certain qualities and characteristics from their childhood that dramatically help them to perform well in their career and this can also be included in the determination of professionalism.
Baggini (2005) states that for today’s teachers, professionalism can be explained in terms of the extent at which teachers from various parts of the world can overcome the challenges and the difficulties experienced in the teaching industry and how well the teachers are able to use their skills and experiences in the teaching field. He claims that teachers’ professionalism can be defined by how well the teacher is good at his or her teaching job and the teacher’s ability to fulfill the highest teaching standards possible. The status of a person who is paid to teach students determines his or her level of professionalism greatly. A higher teaching status level represents a person with the best teaching standards and represents the best in the teaching profession. In contrast, a lower status version of teachers represents poor teaching standards altogether. Phelps (2006) supports these arguments asserting that professionalism in the teaching industry is always enhanced when teachers use excellence as the best criteria to judge the attitudes and the actions of teachers. He firmly believes that teacher’s professionalism is measured by the highest and the best standards of services that a teacher gives to his or her students. I personally think that professionalism is determined by the teaching standards of the teacher, which is dependent both on the passion for teaching and how well the teacher has been trained both in class and in the practical field before beginning the teaching career.
Integration
According to Demirkasmoglu (2003), several steps are needed to attain professionalism in the teaching field and one of the steps is to acquire the relevant knowledge. From the results of my reflection on my intern, I was able to make the same results. The teachers had to gain knowledge of Cantonese language and use it as the primary language for instruction in class. For them to be able to teach the students well, they needed to acquire knowledge of music by learning songs and musical instruments that they will teach the students. Acquiring this knowledge is very important because it helps to improve the standards of the teacher in delivering the content, for instance, in the place where the content needed to be adjusted to suit the students who did not learn the instruments of the symphony orchestra. The adjustments in the content helped the teacher to deliver the content well, which is the whole purpose of professionalism. From these results,, I was able to conclude that acquiring the relevant knowledge is a crucial aspect of teachers’ professionalism and that all the teachers need to embrace this if they are going to provide high-qualityhigh-quality services to their students.
Goodlad (1996) explained that the teacher’s professionalism is earned and is not just gotten from a silver platter. From the third reflection on the e-portfolio, there was a need for more reviewing even though in the first class, there was no much problem. This was to ensure that I have mastered all the required aspects of teaching so that I can attain the highest level of professionalism in the teaching career. On the whole process of being evaluated by the teacher of the department of psychology, one of the things that cropped out that showed my low level of professionalism was the late submission of the lesson plan. This significantly showed I had failed as a teacher and there was a need to correct on lateness. Being on time is always a culture that one needs to cultivate for himself if at all, one will earn a teacher’s professionalism. During the evaluation on 12th May, the general process was greatly affected by my emotions. This helped me to learn that teacher’s professionalism is earned through things such as overcoming emotions and offenses. From these results, I was able to conclude that teacher’s professionalism is something that is earned. One needs to cultivate certain traits in him or herself to be able to earn the highest standards of professionalism in the teaching industry.
According to Baggini (2005), the teacher’s professionalism is characterized by overcoming challenges that teachers might face in their careers. Anytime a professional teacher overcomes challenges, he or she can accomplish higher standards on how he or she delivers the content. From the final reflection on the e-portfolio, the former teacher teaches on composition techniques, makes her textbooks, and makes them suitable for the students. This helps to overcome the challenge of using textbooks that have irrelevant information that does not benefit the students that much per se. Because the students do not know the instruments of the symphony orchestra, she searched for several Cantonese and Mandarin songs. This helps to solve the challenge of insufficient resources. From the results from the data and the e-portfolio, it can be concluded that overcoming challenges is one of the critical aspects of a teacher’s professionalism. In the teaching industry, there are many challenges that teachers need to be able to overcome them so that they can be able to provide quality services to their students.
Application
Several strategies can be applied to help to improve the performance of a professional teacher. To begin acquiring knowledge, a professional teacher can apply the strategy of specializing in a particular field to perfect in his or her skills in that field. Teachers need to narrow down their studies as much as possible in their studies so that they can be able to provide quality services to their students (Ho, Morris & Chung, 2005). Specializing and narrowing down of acquiring of knowledge allows flexibility in the job. For instance, it is very easy to adjust the content of what the students are expected to learn whenever needed. When a teacher has dramatically specialized in a smaller portion of a subject, he or she can be able to add or remove the content of what the students are learning at a particular instance to make the whole thing work.
Another strategy is that the Dos and the Donts needed for one to earn a teacher’s professionalism need to be incorporated in the teachers’ training. This will make it easy for these activities to be part and parcel of the lives of these teachers and during the actual practice of teaching, it will be very easy for them. It takes a lot of energy to practice these activities if they were not part and parcel of them as trainees, which sometimes may lead them to fail to attain the highest level of professional standards (Ho, Morris & Chung, 2005). A teacher who has been trained in an institution where time management is critical will find it very easy to cope with life in a real-life situation. At the end of the training, it becomes part of them and they don’t struggle much in the industry. Training institutions need to come up with all the required Donts and Dos and incorporate them into their learning systems.
References
Baggini, J. (2005). What professionalism means for teachers today? Education Review, 18 (2), 5-11.
Demirkasımoğlu, N. (2003). Defining “Teacher Professionalism” from different perspectives. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 2047-2051.
Englund, T. (1996). Are Professional Teachers a Good Thing. In I. F. Goodson, & A.Hargreaves (Eds.), Teachers’ Professional Lives, London: Falmer Press.
Evans, S. (2008). Classroom language use in Hong Kong’s reformed English-medium stream. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 29(6), 483-498.
Goodlad, J. I. (1996). Sustaining and extending educational renewal. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(3), 228
Ho, L. S., Morris, P., & Chung, Y. P. (2005). Education reform and the quest for excellence: The Hong Kong Story (Vol. 1). Hong Kong University Press.
Phelps, P. H. (2006). The Three Rs of Professionalism. Kappa Delta Pi Record.