In an earlier post I complained about the fact that very often teachers must attend training on their own time, at their own expense.
Doug over at The Blue Skunk Blog wonders “And the problem here is….?”.
I will bet dollars to doughnuts that you, dear reader, consider perusing this blog some sick form of “professional development” and that you aren’t reading it during school time. Dedicated professionals have always learned both in formal and informal ways, have done most learning outside the school day, have paid their own costs, and have made it a priority.
This is called being professional. Teachers need to act like professionals if they wish to be regarded as such. Sorry, but it’s the truth. The logical consequence of professionals not taking their learning seriously is that they are so ineffectual they will no longer be employable. Well, that’s the theory.
I certainly agree that a dedicated professional will always look for new opportunities to grow and learn. And sometimes that training is accomplished outside of the job.
However, when it comes to learning that is required to acquire and maintain job-related skills, most professionals are provided time during the work day and the necessary resources they need by their employers.
Look at lawyers, accountants, doctors, nurses, police – almost any career you might call a profession – and you’ll find this is true.
Except teachers.
I also agree with Doug that teachers need to behave as professionals and many do just by going way beyond what is considered “normal” in their professional growth.
But schools, districts and society in general also need to treat educators as professionals. And that must include incorporating regular, sustained, and meaningful professional development into a teacher’s normal contract year.
As for Sunday mornings, Doug. They’re for our personal form of professional development – blogging. :-)
Most of the lawyers, doctors, accountants and dentists, I know are self-employed and thus take training out of their own pocket. But your point is well-made.
Doug
Tim,
I agree with you and would like to add that in most careers, you are rewarded for providing evidence of professional growth, not patted on the head and redirected to the company/district educational trend du jour!
Diane
Yep.
Doug, even those doctors, lawyers, etc. who are self-employed have their professional development paid for by the corporate structure they’ve established to run their business. The tax break that results is often better compensation than what most of us get as teachers.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if teachers were independent contractors? :-)
Tim,
Interesting side/parallel discussion: are administrators also responsible for their own PD on their own time?
Read my comment on Carolyn Foote’s 9/22 posting
http://futura.edublogs.org/2007/09/22/the-internet-librarian/
and let all of us know what you think.
Diane
My district requires 8 hours of staff development a year that is outside of our paid time. We do get a comp day, usually Easter Monday – so we do get paid.
We can choose pretty much anything we want. Our district staff development is evolving. I teach Tech on the elementary level. This summer there were three interesting classes. TEASe, Podcasting, and Distance Learning.
I’ve asked for follow up classes on Podcasting and Distance Learning to take us further along. I think they will be offered.
If you find a class/workshop you like and your administrator approves, the district will pay the registration fees and it counts towards your 8 hours, provided the class isn’t during school hours.
If you accept reinburstment for travel expenses you can not use the hours for your required 8 hours. They do “count” it as additional training. That reflects well on your PDAS.
We have district staff development, that I don’t find to be a good fit. There are only a few people teaching tech at the elementary level (campus decision), so they don’t program much for us. I tend to go to math and science workshops for the k-2 grades on those days.
Campus staff development, with our current principal, is good. Granted most of us would like to just go work in our rooms, because most of these days contract days before the kids arrive.
This year a good amount of campus staff development time was spent in subject PLC’s planning for the upcoming year. It was productive time.