What is Professionalism?

Why is it so hard to define professionalism? This question does not have an easy answer. Professionalism has a different meaning to each individual and what constitutes a professional differs greatly among teachers. Sergiovanni (1992) wrote about four different aspects of a professional teacher, and among each category many responsibilities lie.

1) The Commitment to Caring: This must include the entire realm of the educational environment such as colleagues, students, parents, the school, and educational administration. This should come naturally, as having positive relationships with all of the above will allow for a healthy working and teaching environment. If there is no concern for those surrounding a teacher, perhaps a new career should be considered.

2) Commitment to Practice in Exemplary Ways: Teachers must take their job seriously; therefore, taking time to create excellent lesson plans, organize fun experiences for students, constantly improve on classroom management, and dress and behave as a professional. Teachers are role models and must consciously act as one should. They must avoid situations that would portray themselves in an unflattering light.

3) Commitment to One's Own Practice and to the Practice itself: This refers to always striving to improve through professional development, giving back to teacher education, and helping with teacher's unions.

4) Commitment to Valued Social Ends: This pertains to working on sensitive issues such as bullying or racism, giving back to the local and global communities, and overall trying to make the world a better place through education. Having students involved in giving back early on in life will hopefully inspire them to continue to throughout adulthood.

Considering all of these suggestions, I believe that it is hard to narrow everything down into one concise definition. Instead of attempting, I will just leave those as is, and you can take from it what you will. Sergiovanni's statements remind me that I must give back to my students as well as other colleagues to help build the best educational team possible. As a teacher I hope to blend together all of those points, because primarily I believe that that combination will have the most impact in creating a well-rounded upcoming generation.