Conducting a sense of professionalism is a very important part of professional etiquette as a teacher. But, do we know the real meaning of this term? How do we ensure that it is maintained most especially when dealing with our students, our colleagues and superiors? Let us understand this concept in a better way.
“Professionalism is knowing how to do it, when to do it, and doing it.” – Frank Tyger
This terminology leads to logical and completely unbiased decision making as basis of good teaching career. Professionalism in teaching is the same as professionalism at work on whatever career you have. To educate the young minds is not an easy job as it requires skills and knowledge. One may have the natural ability to learn to be a successful teacher, but, some requires courses and seminars. Professionalism in teaching profession is important as any job in this world. A teacher needs to be professional at all events while doing the job and should not be influenced by their feelings towards the environment.
Only few of us are willing to accept that we are bias. However, almost everyone does. Being bias affects people negatively and that is the start of being unjust. Many of us face injustice due to lack of professionalism. Discrimination due to sex, age, religion and other personal reason are against professionalism as a teacher.
Why should we be professional in teaching? There are many reasons to mention to answer this question. First, for teachers, we are not dealing with the students but we are also dealing with the parents, community and the school board members. Having favoritism in class may not be the best way for a teacher to act. Some of us are influenced by our feelings and in some cases; we wanted to take revenge with our students by giving them lower grades. This is an act of unprofessionalism, and that should not happen. Teachers should be fair/just to all students. Second, if we practice professionalism with our colleagues it will ensure good performance by all. If every one of us will do this and do not take some personal reason to be bias, we will do the best we can for our job. Third, professionalism in our job is required to ensure a good team spirit. If all in our organization work professionally, we will know how to value the goals of the organization along with our personal ones. Lastly, it is required to ensure justice to everyone’s effort. In this environment, we have a person’s quality of work takes into consideration along with the quantity of our work. This event does justice wherein, our superiors appreciate our work.
Not only literally, we need to learn and act how to be professional. Professionalism is not only based with our personalities toward work, but also with our knowledge on the profession we have. And this attitude should be known by every teacher.
As a teacher, it is significant to inculcate professionalism. A teacher should be conscious of the accountability for effective teaching and effective learning of the student. A teacher is accountable to the society and this aspect must be channeled through the appropriate hierarchy of competent professional authority.
As I end up this topic, every one of us here should leave our personal issues to whoever and act professionally.
By: Ace F. Ebuen | Teacher I | Kitang Elementary School | Limay, Bataan
