The Teaching Profession

1. The Teaching Profession Chapter 5

2. Is Teaching a Profession? • Defining a profession: • Strong intellectual skills • Provides an essential service • Requires extensive specialized training • Allows autonomy in decision making • Emphasizes service to its clients • Identifies professional standards of behavior Assumes individuals are responsible for their own actions and decisions Engages in self-governance

3. Arguments for teaching as a profession • The need for strong intellectual skills created a steady rise in academic requirements for entering and exiting teacher education • Extensive specialized training • Professional standards

4. Arguments against teaching as a profession • Moderate specialized training • Minimal competition entering teacher preparation and the teaching ranks • Only recent adoption of standardized testing for entrance and exit of training • Limited autonomy of decision making • Minimal self governance • Relatively low salaries and status

5. Professional organizations • American Federation of Teachers • National Education Association Each has two major purposes: to serve as a strong teacher union, with collective bargaining; and to assist in continuing professional development of all teachers There are also many specialty organizations: age group, subject matter, specialty area

6. How is teacher professionalism changing? • Educational reform efforts: beginning with A Nation at Risk (1983) • Higher standard for students: core curriculum, standards for core subjects, standardized testing • More rigorous teacher certification

7. Teachers’ professional responsibilities • Conducts self ethically • Works productively • Displays initiative by using a variety of resources • Initiates personal growth in subject area(s), learning theories, and/or instructional practices; establishes goals for professional improvement • Utilizes knowledge of families and community resources to enhance support for children and families, including those from diverse groups