Educational Professionalism (18-Feb-2018)

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Educational Professionalism

One individual person will go to the doctor when they get illness only; One will go to the engineer when they want to construct some building; one will go to the police station, when they face individual/communal illegal/legal problems (as per their feelings), etc. People need help from professionals when they feel/face a problem of lacking something. Hospitals {Health}, Courts {Justice}, etc. also comes under in this way.

But the domain of education is different and special, Education is required for all compulsorily because human behavior is incomplete in nature. All animals are complete in nature because they are just biological and physical in nature, but Humans are sociological (a class, caste, gender, citizen, regional, etc.), biological, psychological, physical, etc. beings in nature, it happened ontogenetically in the nature. Human sociological experiences are not inherent in children/human nature, they need to acquire. Those sociological and psychological experiences are gained from nearby surroundings/environment according to time, situation, place, and persons. For giving these sociological experiences to children, formal education is needed for children for making them to fit into society as a citizen. The education systems will also globalize (nationalize) sociological experiences for children. 

Professional means who involves in prolonged training with formal qualifications. This is the google dictionary meaning, this also says that a Professional is to do work with some qualifications in a continued way. Qualification means a condition in the fulfilled state of the process.

Teaching and learning are the major fundamental characteristics of education. So teaching and learning are the main things for professionalism in the education field. Teacher means who works with some qualities of having some Ideas/principles in a certain way with competence (do something with knowledge) and skill (to solve the problem) while dealing with knowledge for children. Professionalism says about practicing an activity with competencies and skills. 

So I feel, professionalism can be developed by practicing acceptance because professionalism is a process, not an end. For process, we need to accept, if professionalism is an end, then it has only the past, and nothing to do with the present. Professionalism is a process to work, then it has present, so it will develop future. Professionalism can be developed in teachers in very different ways. "Professionalism is developing (learning) process for teaching."

How do develop the professionalism of teachers?

Professionalism can be developed by practicing ever self-motivation by accepting the process of life. Motivation will come when there is hope in life. Self-motivation also comes from hope (not mostly from expectations). Hope will generated when there is a possibility for achieving something.

I feel, self-motivation for professionalism can’t be trained, but it can be developed through education (Enlightening experiences) through the- Visual (seeing) experiences, reading experiences, Audio (Listening experiences), and Kinesthetic (Bodily movements) experiences. Self-motivation will come from the environment around him/her. Self-motivation and society/system support are dynamically interrelated for the development of professionalism in teachers. Professionalism is an ever learning process. Seeing or listening or by reading or by bodily movements or by the interjection of all these will impact professionalism. For visual, reading, and audio they depend on others, for that we need to change ourselves first, because mostly “Their (Others) attitude is the result of our action”. Some objective things have to be there for kinesthetic learners to experience and learn with teaching competence and skills, which will help the students in learning the subjects in a conscious relative manner (if knowledge will not be relate to a student’s life, then it will become completely abstract/non-figurative knowledge)

If we want to make teachers professional(ism), we need to be professional first, because our society is complex, most of the things are interrelated, and professionalism is also complicated, anywhere we need to start teaching (making realizing g) competence and skills.

Professionalism is the mean/process of doing work with expert knowledge, it is organic (everything will be valuable if one will be in misplace it will trouble a lot) work, there accepting all the diversified things in our life is very important to develop professionalism, because professionalism to do work and focus on knowledge, not on outcome. 

I have faith in this both statements “Truth is a Pathless land” (J. Krishnamurti) and “Freedom with Responsibility” (Anurag Behar). Professionalism is developing competence and skills by means, it is a truth. If you organize the truth, then the truth also starts losing its essence/source and it will be mechanical, because it has fixed outcomes, they only focus on this product, then that process will become mechanical. In the mechanical process, if we lose anything, nothing will affect us (but we pretend like affected) e.g. If lost I lost my phone, my life may not become reverse, but I feel disturbed/reverse, but nothing might be there & when I get a new phone I will forget about the old phone after some time. But in the organic process if we lose something that affects will be there for long time e.g. If I lose my hands I feel disturbed/reversed, If I get an artificial hand also I feel I really lack something. If you will not think about any outcome then you might become useless. If there is only freedom (free from responsibilities) then there is no value for work. So we need the freedom to exit from mechanical work with responsibilities through self-motivation. But if you have freedom and responsibilities for that outcome then that process will help a lot.

I think this (freedom with responsibility) will be there in informal work culture. I feel Professionalism can be developed in an informal (comfortable) setting only, in the formal setting we may pressurize, because we need to focus on outcome-product instead of work. Most of the things will depend only on the product, not on the process of work, if we focus on the outcome then the work might become mechanical and later causes frustration, for the teacher if we say I need good marks for students means they think about marks (outcome) only and may forget about right pedagogy, it may create frustration in the process and the process will become mechanical (No value will be there, but we think that there will be some value) with the outcome. In the Informal sector, freedom will be there with some responsibilities. There will control/supervisory will be there by considering individual priorities. Here the authority will give freedom and also responsibilities. Ex. Telling about the process work and reminding about outcomes without pressure. Filed work visits to schools the teacher will mostly focus on teaching plans for making children understand the subjects not mostly on getting marks their freedom will be there with some responsibilities. We will focus on our skills, by leaving tension about the outcome. 

All (informal, formal & casual) work processes (outcome-oriented, freedom/responsibility oriented outcome & not bothering about the outcome) all will work in the developmental process of professionalism, but in the system, I think informal arrangement will develop teachers into their work/practice.

There will be three kinds of settings will be there for work. First is a formal setting you (I) will be under the control of some authority, there you need to complete your work by the given time, here some fixed outcome will be there, here is there is no value for individual concerns. Second is an informal setting, here is also you (I) will be under the control (guidance) of others, this is also like the formal setup but individual concerns will take into consideration. The third is a causal setting, there is no control on you, if you are interested only, then only we can work without any supervisory. This is not outcome-oriented nor process orientated. 

In the formal sector, there is the only teacher and student relations will be there, but in the informal sector, the teacher and student relations will be there with friendship and in the casual sector, I think there will be no relation at all. Teacher Professionalism is a process of making students morally (concerned with principles of right and wrong) active individuals in life (present), this is not the outcome, but it is a lifetime process, that can be done with the hope, that will happen in informal culture.

In the name of formal & casual work culture also informal work/practice culture will be there. In the name of informal work culture also casual or formal work culture will be there. Just by the name, it is very difficult to define the characteristics of work/practice. We need experience in defining the informal practice for professionalism. 

What kind of informal work will develop teacher professionalism?

Process of observing, understanding, the students (observable things) behavior, socio-economical backgrounds; curriculum (observed things) facts, and how it affects present, in the institution settings like schools and families. Trusting relationship, caring attitude, non-judgmental, non-authoritative, fearless environment, etc. 

We need to know the value of professionalism, because if we stop professionalism (competence and skills) in education, then there will be no good teaching at all, and learning become mechanical (No value will be there, but we think that there will be some value for products), the children will happy by seeing marks only, not by seeing the subject knowledge. 

With the professionalism of the teacher, the student’s subject knowledge will develop and automatically s/he will get marks, then they feel happy about their subjective knowledge. 

CONCLUSION: The Process

Professionalism is the mean/process of doing work. When we are getting/giving freedom in work, it encourages us/them to work a lot. In the informal system, this will happen. Professionalism is organic (everything will be valuable if one will be in misplace it will trouble a lot) work, and there accepting all the diversified things in our life. To do work means facing diversified conditions only, “Because we can’t step in the same water (a metaphor for all the things including work) again”. In an informal way of work environment, there freedom will be there with responsibilities. I only need to create this.