![\"Jeffrey](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/jeffreyprofile-150x150.jpg\")
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\u201cIt is difficult, if not impossible, for those who do not perform to be good judges of the performance of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013Aristotle, from \u2018The Politics: Book VIII\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n
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Having been asked to write a piece on the topic of Professionalism. I immediately said \u201cyes\u201d, thinking to myself: \u201cI\u2019ve been teaching for 25 years now, I know what it takes to do well in this profession.\u201d\u00a0 Therein was my first mistake; profession and professional may be relatives but they are not twins. According to the big, ever-present Merriam -Webster dictionary on my desk, \u2018profession\u2019 was defined as \u201ca calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation.\u201d The same dictionary told me that \u2018professional\u2019 meant not only \u201cthe conduct, aims or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional\u201d but also \u201cthe skills, good judgement and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, taking these definitions as my start and with the implied attributes as my guide, I came up with the following acrostic which defines how I view professionalism.<\/p>\n
P<\/b>rincipled and polite preparedness<\/span>: An educator needs to be guided and guide by a set of principles. Whether these are the product of our past academic preparation, our formal education, or if they have been learned along the way, throughout the years on the job, we must constantly exercise them in a courteous and professional manner. We must always be prepared to teach, to learn, and to be ready to explain \u2018why\u2019 whenever our principled approach is questioned and to do so in a polite, dignified way.<\/p>\n R<\/b>eadiness, respect<\/span>:\u00a0 A professional teacher must always be ready to work with others, even when those others may be hesitant or even unwilling to work with or for us. This readiness to work also includes the readiness to teach and learn as well, for each new class, possibly even each new student must be learned in order to be taught. Exhibiting this readiness to work with others in most instances springs from respect, both for and from those others.<\/p>\n O<\/b>rganizational skills or competencies<\/span>:\u00a0 A committed, organized teacher is one who exhibits the competencies to rise to any number of challenges and to do the job to the best of his or her abilities. As a \u00a0professional educator they are reliable, from the perspective of their fellow faculty and administration and even more importantly, from the perspective of their students. A teacher that is organized will realize that not all of the students in front of them will share the same levels of knowledge and interest in the class. That teacher must make use of all of his professional competencies to make sure that once the \u2018knowledge is imparted\u2019, once the information has been shared, that all of the students then have the necessary time, chance and opportunities to absorb and assimilate it.<\/p>\n F<\/b>airiness<\/span>: Whether it be dealing with the administration, colleagues, parents or students, all must be dealt with, listened to and handled fairly and in accordance with the institution\u2019s and your own principled guidelines. Even most people who may disagree with you will recognize fairness.<\/p>\n E<\/b>ngagement with education<\/span>: While scholarship has to be accurate, education has to be interesting. It is the ability to stir an interest in all students that makes for a good educator because it is the interest stirred in a discussion or a class session that inspires a student to continue. Many times it is just an interesting comment or lesson that can have a lifelong impact on a student. The earlier definition mentioned that a profession required \u201cspecialized knowledge\u201d. If one cannot impart that knowledge in an interesting and engaging manner, time in class may just be time wasted.\u00a0 One who truly educates does not say everything, he allows room for the students, the learners to think things out for themselves, for personal discovery. The professional educator knows that true learning leads to…<\/p>\n S<\/b>elf-Reliance<\/span>: \u00a0A professional will be aware of just how far his skills and knowledge will take him and just how far he should go. A teacher should know when to be an independent thinker, when to move away from \u2018the coursebook\u2019, and when to allow his students that independent, encouraging self-reliance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.\u201d<\/p>\n –Ralph W. Emerson, from \u2018Self-Reliance\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n S<\/b>upportive<\/span>: On the student\u2019s quest for knowledge they will need trust and courage to become an independent learner. A professional teacher will exhibit the \u201cskill and good judgement that is expected\u201d to allow them to do such. This may be one of the hardest points in the professional\u2019s development: learning when it is time to step back and let the learning, that has traditionally been your domain, to blossom and grow. If we can develop our emotional intelligence so as to understand when the skills have been sufficiently learned, to trust our learners, they will also trust us as a form of support.<\/p>\n I<\/b>nnovative<\/span>: Change happens and as professionals we need to be ready to adapt and be open to such inevitable developments. We need to know how to introduce the beneficial developments into our teaching so as to enhance the learning environment that we create in our classrooms. We also need to know how to maintain what has always worked for us in the face of all of these innovations. Change for the sake of change is not always best.<\/p>\n O<\/b>pen-minded<\/span>:\u00a0 A professional should possess both honesty and integrity yet also have the ability to remain open-minded. It is my belief that an open-minded approach is the only way to \u201cdo our job well\u201d when we as educators encounter so many dfferent people and situations.<\/p>\n N<\/b>urturing<\/span>: \u00a0Teachers need to nurture an interest in what they teach. We need to nurture the relationships we have with our students and colleagues. For many teachers the relationships they have with the community and with the local businesses are also extremely important and must be handled in a professional yet nurturing manner so as to keep things functioning smoothly and professionally.<\/p>\n A<\/b>ttitude and appearance<\/span>: This goes well beyond the idea of \u201cwalk the walk and talk the talk.\u201d A professional will exhibit \u201cthe conduct and aims or qualities\u201d that make him a professional, it becomes second nature. While every culture and institution will have their own rules and codes of conduct, a professional image is much the same everywhere. A positive, professional attitude may not necessarily mean you are the most qualified, but it may suggest a sense of confidence and accountability, both good traits for all students to see and to develop.<\/p>\n L<\/b>lifelong learning<\/span>: On our way to becoming teachers we have spent many years learning, developing and honing many types of knowledge \u2013 and this must continue as a lifelong practice. In many places Professional Development is required and as a professional teacher this should be viewed more as an opportunity than as a requirement. It should be viewed as a chance to learn and to further develop. For if we as teachers lose that spark to learn and develop, how can we impart it to those who come to our classes each day?<\/p>\n I<\/b>ndependent<\/span>:\u00a0 Be it! Teach it! A community of independent individuals are the building blocks for a successful classroom. Independence does not mean that all may do whatever they want, it should mean that all have learned to be a member of a group, the class, without a great deal of external compulsion to comply. The Montessori Method.<\/p>\n A professional teacher should conduct himself, act and behave according to his status and personal beliefs. A professional teacher should also know how to impart this to and expect it from his students.<\/p>\n S<\/b>tudent-oriented<\/span>: \u00a0Although this may sound cliche, like a topical buzzword, they are after all why the profession exists. They are why we pursue the knowledge we have and why we make such an effort to learn how to share it. The real profession that we are all \u201ctrained to do well\u201d in is to help our students to learn. So if we do not really know them, their needs, wants, likes and dislikes, how can we possibly succeed?<\/p>\n As Alfred North Whitehead once said: \u201cA merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God\u2019s earth. What we should aim at producing is a man who possesses both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction.\u201d The direction that a professional teacher\u2019s knowledge should follow is in the direction that will most benefit their student\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n M<\/b>altitudes<\/span>: \u00a0We, as professional teachers, encounter a multitude of students each term, each year, and so we must possess a multitude of approaches and methods so as to be able to reach the majority of them. My \u201cintensive academic preparation\u201d and \u201cthe qualities that characterize and mark (me as) a professional person\u201d have prepared me in a multitude of ways to deal with all of these challenges, and yet I learn.<\/p>\n So, as with beauty, perhaps professionalism is also much in the eye of the beholder. There are certain cultural, institutional and personal things that we can do, many mentioned above, to be seen as professionals in our chosen fields. My goal has always been to try to achieve the balance between what allows me to feel professional and for others to view me that way.<\/p>\n \u201cNo aspect of education is to be disparaged; it is the highest blessing bestowed on mankind, and it is the best of them on whom it is most fully bestowed.\u201d<\/p>\n – Plato, from \u2018The Republic\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connect with iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account<\/a> to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers<\/a> and Teacher Development<\/a> courses.<\/p>\n An Acrostic For Professionalism – Jeffrey Doonan \u201cIt is difficult, if not impossible, for those who do not perform to be good judges of the performance of others.\u201d \u2013Aristotle, from \u2018The Politics: Book VIII\u2019 Having been asked to write a piece on the topic of Professionalism. I immediately said \u201cyes\u201d, thinking to myself: \u201cI\u2019ve been … Continue reading The Professionalism Issue – Jeffrey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":3762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professionalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Like what we do? 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