[MUSIC] Welcome everybody to course seven: Being a Professional. And this is week one: What it Means to be a Professional. Lecture one is Teaching as a Profession. It's been an argument or a debate for some time whether teaching is in fact a profession or not. Some of the characteristics of professions seem to fit teaching fairly well. Others less so. So let's consider some of the characteristics of a professional, and see how well teaching fits that particular label. The first thing we see with many professions, is that they require some form of specialised training, and a formal qualification, before one is allowed to practice, or work. In other occupations this isn't the case. In many cases, for example, people learn on the job, watching somebody else gradually being shown what to do, and we would call this sort of approach a craft. And this is very, very common in more traditional societies. However, with teaching, it's developed over time to the extent that we now believe teachers should have specialised training, before they begin teaching. Rather than simply having an aptitude for teaching, or having been a successful student. When we talk about the body of people who make up the profession, or the occupation, we often give it a label: the legal profession, the medical profession, the engineering profession and so forth. Professions and members of professions often have significant responsibility, for other people and resources. For example, an engineer is responsible for buildings or bridges, that basically have importance to society and community, but also if they are done badly, could result in injury or harm. Injury or harm is something else that we'll consider in talking about teaching as a profession. So, a follow-up point on this one is that society places a great deal of trust in the professions because of the important work that they do. So, is teaching a profession? Well, it fits some of the definitions as we've said earlier. In earlier times, teachers learned on the job. There was the notion of the student teacher, or the pupil teacher, who was often a bright student. And in that class, which was often a multi-age class they would begin to assist the teacher with some of the tasks of teaching during the daytime. Working with younger students, for example. Over time, we developed courses of training for teachers. And we required them to undertake those courses before they could practice on their own with classes of students. That's not to mean that a lot of teaching and a lot of teacher training is not on the job. It is. We can't produce a fully formed professional from teacher training. So what we do is give people a foundation, and some of the schools and knowledge they need to begin teaching. But an important aspect of teaching, is that the professional learning continues throughout your career. So, we have a situation where in most parts of the world now, teachers need to gain a teaching qualification of some sort. Usually before, but sometimes during their work as a teacher. And in fact, many teachers engage in further study once they begin teaching because they realise they need to know more about the work that they do, but in some cases they want to specialise. They become interested in things. Literacy, ICT gifted education and so forth. So, an important characteristic of teachers and professionals, is that their professional learning continues well beyond when they begin that particular occupation. In terms of teaching, teaching qualifications are of two types, really. Well, they include two sorts of material: what content to teach, and then had to teach that content to certain groups of students. So for example, you may be a high school history teacher, so you'll need obviously to have a content knowledge, or a knowledge of history, but you also need to teach that particular subject. Much of teaching is what we would call generic. In that, the skills are the same, whether we're talking primary, early childhood, secondary, university, or whatever. But some are also to do with a particular group of students, that might be a particular year level but it also might include people, for example with disabilities or other specialised needs. There were some issues associated with teaching as a profession. Professions usually have high status or public standing because of the work that they do, because that work is so important to the operation of society, status often comes with that. So for example, doctors tend to have high status. However teaching is a mass profession. In some countries it's been estimated for example that one in 30 members of the workforce is a teacher. This can work against high status. The more there are or something the less maybe people think it's important. A second point occurs when we talk about teaching as a profession and that's whether teachers fit the profile of say, a doctor. Many doctors work in private practice, and in some cases, professionals such as engineers for example, may set their own fees. This is uncommon with teaching. Teaching usually occurs in schools with groups of teachers, and things like fees for example, are covered through teacher salary agreements. So, it's not a situation usually where teachers can operate as an independent professional. Although some do with things like tutoring for example. Another important point is that, unlike other professions, teachers don't normally control entry to and exit from the profession. Other professions such as psychology, with psychologists for example. They may well have a board that controls the standard of entry and exit and where the people can keep their accreditation to work as a professional. Often not so with teaching. Another issue that is a bone of contention from time to time is the entry standards to teacher training. Some professions have very, very high entry standards. Less so for teaching. Which doesn't mean we don't want high-quality people. And it doesn't mean we don't have high-quality people in the profession. But sometimes those standards are lower, and this is a bone of contention. As a result, teacher status is sometimes seen as a very important issue. And we'll talk about teacher status later. Particularly in respect with how teachers feel they are regarded by society and the effects that this can have on things like teacher satisfaction. It can also influence for example, the quality of people who are attracted to teaching. So, what does it mean to be a professional? Here are a number of characteristics that we see with professional practice. As we'd already mentioned there's some sort of formal qualification before you can begin to work. And that might be a university or college diploma. gained over time and that time can vary from one to four or five years or more. The second characteristic we've mentioned is specialised knowledge. How to teach certain content, or how to teach certain groups of students? What we also see with a profession is that there is some sort of license or permission to practice. So, in many jurisdictions, it is required of teachers that they have registration. Others not so. We'll talk about teacher registration later in this series. The other characteristic of being a professional is that there are very high expectations for both behaviour and practice. And in the case of teaching, we'll examine what these expectations are and what they cover. The final aspect of being a professional is, we are talking about somebody with high personal standards and values. Now, there is a YouTube clip for you entitled I am a Teacher. I'd like you to have a look at that, and to think of some a number of issues that are important. What are the characteristics of teachers? What do they do? What do teachers believe in general? Put together these characteristics make up a successful, professional teacher. As you'll see, and as you know, being a professional teacher is not easy, but it's very important and it can be very rewarding. In the next section, we're going to explore what society expects of teachers in more detail. [MUSIC]
