How To Be A Professional Teacher?

    I disagree with the idea of teachers rejecting to do a certain job in school. Teachers always have the mindsets that they are to be in school, enter the classroom, and teach the students only. 

    As the demand from Ministry of Education and   the other stakeholders rise, teachers are becoming more or less like a servant. Stakeholders create an image as how the students should be when they have finished a certain educational institution like school and college. They believe school is like the factory in which students are programmed to have a certain sets of skills that suit the demand of the job market. 

    Burdened heavily with the other extra works apart from teaching students, teachers are becoming very choosy. ‘Impossible to do everything at work’ attitude has lead teachers to develop a certain kind of mindset. They think they can choose which extra works they want to do. So, some choosy teachers are not practicing professionalism. 

   So often I ask myself what is the meaning of professionalism. Looking the meaning from the dictionary helps me to find the answer but it is out of context. So I observe. Through my observation I do find that some teachers are lacking professionalism.

   Some teachers are lacking communication skills. Communication skills is vital in becoming a professional teacher. Every day at the office is not the same. You will be given a certain work to complete under a time frame. For example, in two weeks’ time you are going to carry out a coloring contest for Year 5 students. Once you are selected as the coordinator of the program, your colleagues are going to ignore and care less about the project. Being as a normal person yourself, you would not be able to complete the job if everyone is not helping out. This becomes a problem when some teachers choose not to cooperate with you and you are stuck at the process. To make things worse, you want to communicate with the lazy workers but they refuse to do so. You then end up doing what should be a team work, alone. 

   Be a good leader. Leaders are different from bosses. To have a conducive working environment, you should hope that you have a good leader especially in a certain project. I find that good leaders should be fair to every team member. That kind of leaders are able to appreciate everything that the team members do. A good leader also must trust their team members. They must know that communicating to the team members effectively is crucial.

  There are more things that a professional teacher must practice to even consider themselves a professional teacher. But I would stop here because once you are able to master these two skills, you are good to go to be professional teacher.