Being a teacher is not an
easy job. The teacher is responsible for the students he teaches, ranging from
cognitive to student behavior. Even though it doesn't look physically tiring,
it's tired in mind and feeling. Tired mind because a teacher must think hard so
the students he teaches can feel happy when studying with him and also can
understand what he teaches. In addition, feeling tired because sometimes there
are some student behaviors that are difficult to handle and must involve the
student's parents. To deal with all this, a professional teacher is needed in
carrying out their duties. However, there are not many professional teachers,
so we still need other professional teachers in our education.
The status of
"professional teacher" is not a matter of determination, but that
status is like a dream, can be achieved. That is, teachers who I don’t yet bear
the title "professional teacher" can still pursue the title and of
course qualifications as professional teachers. To pursue these qualifications,
the teachers who are not professional must know the criteria of a professional
teacher. The following are the criteria for professional teachers that I got
from several writings written by people working in our education:
- A professional should have some professional training and hold some kind of related certification or a qualification. Professionals strive to improve themselves and their profession. They do research attend training courses or seminars and workshops. Beside that, professional teacher have to represent school at local, state, and even national events when asked, keep in touch with advancing practice and theory in the subject area and, generally, in teaching by reading professional literature and attending state and national professional conferences.
- A professional tries to uphold the professional standards that govern all teachers. This can be in how they present themselves, not being drunk on the job. Not being lazy or incompetent. What all professional teachers should master is; Class planning and organization, learning psychology, class management skills, mastery of the subject, common sense and criterion, and basic cultural knowledge and spelling.
- Professionalism is expected of teachers and most behave in professional ways. Here’s a partial list of what constitutes professional behavior in teachers:
- Come to class prepared to teach.
- Return student work with grades and appropriate comments in a timely fashion.
- Maintain firm but fair discipline in the classroom, halls, and lunchrooms.
- Be friendly with students while maintaining an appropriate distance.
- Meet professional obligations including participating in faculty meetings, on school committees, and in school-community events.
- Be available for parent conferences.
- Be available for student conferences.
- A good teacher sees her/his profession as a mission.
- Keeps a positive attitude toward children.
- Be respectful and be open minded to other cultures and other parenting styles.
- Be creative, be a problem solver and posses an emotional intelligence.
From the results of
reviewing articles containing professional teacher criteria, we can conclude
that being a professional teacher is not easy, but becoming a professional
teacher is also not something that cannot be achieved by someone. All teachers
can achieve professionalism, most importantly continue to strive to renew and
improve their qualifications.
Maybe at this time the
number of competent and professional teachers is still rare, but with ongoing
improvements, hopefully there will be more numbers so that the quality of
students being taught will be better and this will also affect the quality of
education in a school or the country in a better direction.
Those are reviews from
me, hopefully useful, thank you!
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