Professionalism in Teaching: Seven Tips of Success

Chicago

“The best way to create a genuine responsibility era, a genuine commitment to families and to the values they reflect, is to begin with those to whom we owe the greatest responsibility.-those we whom most value-our kids. Let us not just talk about it; let us put it first.” John kerry

The world of professionalism is now unique in its attributions, characteristics and practices, and its boundaries are expanding to reach far beyond our imagination. This world is now extending beyond formal technicalities and formalities and significantly devaluing its traditional determinations. In Business as well as in Media and Politics, corporations are seeking and recruiting individuals with different approaches and concepts of professionalism. The reason is simple: A vivid world needs vivid personalities and characters. Of course, teaching cannot be an exception.

The classrooms of today are made of a more diverse population and are experiencing stronger challenge of variety. A challenge that forces educators today to have, exercise and represent a vast range of qualities and values. These qualities include and are not necessarily limited to effective communication, strong public relations, problem-solving skills, valuable work ethics, impressive creativity, commitment and responsibility. These qualities, I chose to call the Seven Tips, are now receiving more attention and interest in modern schooling disciplines.

Teaching is not a work schedule, an assignment, a grade and a graduation ceremony. Teaching is not a task, a practice and an assessment. Teaching is a message of love and a message of hope. Teaching is a memory, an age and a spirit. Teaching is a commitment to a dream our kids have and to a dream a nation build on its own people for a brighter future. Teachers should be emotionally and intellectually prepared to express themselves openly in the world of their students and sense their thirst for richer knowledge of the wonders of this world. Teachers should be continuously aware of the changes and challenges that we all experience in this globe so their students are emotionally, physically, intellectually and ethically more prepared to work and achieve. The age of teach and test is gone and so the traditional thinking of education.

Education is an interdisciplinary field in many of its attributions and so is teaching. This arena now relates to different fields of academia and links itself strongly with the world of enterprise and corporation. A world that strives for creativity, responsibility and commitment. In business, a creative personnel is a bigger number and a larger profit in the stock markets. In media, a creative personnel is a brighter image and a stronger message. In teaching, creativity is magic and an infinity of opportunities.

Two centuries ago, both the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and the poet, historian and playwright Johann Friedrich Schiller showed a unique sensitivity to this quality we call creativity. Both realized more than others that “creativity has the capacity to foster educationally a particular kind of freedom essential to sustaining an alert, liberal, and questioning mind.” A mind that can establish stronger foundations for our institutes to promote, grow and allow an advancement of thought and an appreciation of learning.

Both investigated and studied the effect this quality may have on the nature and quality of our work. Their thoughts on a free and proper use of mind which still hold a significant influence in contemporary thoughts do offer our teachers an opportunity to reconsider and re-invest in their teaching formulas. “When the landscape of this kind of learning presupposes the opening of oneself to the world, the stretching of a mind, the thickening of one's perceptions, and the discovery of a deeper and richer self through living, one will tend to experience as life enhancing more of nature, previously unfelt and articulated modes of being in the world.”

Creativity is biological and psychological need that is is ultimately necessary for human growth and reproduction. In teaching, creativity is technically the ability to add more to the recipe so the classrooms can enjoy a different exotic taste. Conceptually, creativity is that highest sense of liberty that teachers should experience in their curricular and extra-curricular activities. It is that fingerprint, personal touch and the iconic element in one’s professional reservoir that enable educators to offer new alternatives of knowledge and draw new lines of a quality of teaching and learning.

Creative teachers can substantially have the greater influence over our educational practices and can enormously intensify their students’ appetite. “One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. Curriculum is so much raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.” These words of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl jung does reflect in its depth and to an extreme limit a perfect image of a true education. A true education which chains logically to the purity of our hearts and advances love and devotion in teaching. Hearts that open our kids new dimensions and larger views of their world. Hearts that can inspire the spirits of hope, ignite imaginations and the desire for discovery, and instill an infinite love and appreciation of learning.