Professional Skills and Abilities

1. Education is concerned with the formation of each person- of love, care, and compassion- who appreciate and will create beauty- who have the urge and the abilities to serve others

2. One of the problems of education in our time has been to see the means by which we educate to which to become the ends of education.The purposes of education are:- to raise the dignity of each child- to bring to distinction all children

3. These are all based on “the disciplined mind” and disciplined thinking. They are not alternatives to the disciplines themselves, but, at their best, the result of them. This is likely to mean ensuring the qualities of integrity, honesty, courage, and caring are to the fore in educational provision.

4. Lying at the heart of the emerging conceptualisation of scholarship is that it is concerned with the formation of enquiry and intellectual debate.That debate is about much more than knowledge, understanding and skills.At the core of the debate are the values which we hold, and which we see as significant for future generations… the promotion of imagination and the encouragement towards creative thought and action

5. When you teach, there are two things you teach…You teach children the principles, ideas and processes of a subject.You also teach the child to love or hate that subject; a disposition to the subject.These are two different aspects of learning.

6. The professional education of teachers should focus on matters such as:- Having a philosophic approach to education rather than a systems driven approach- Developing the confidence in articulating this philosophy-Having the skills of communication- Managing to implement that for which the teacher and other professional teachers are to be held accountable.

7. Some Models of Teacher EducationThere are three models of teacher education which arise from the general approaches to education. These are:- A Transmission Model- A Process ModelA Transformational Professional Model

8. The transmission model is- “Instructional” in style- Predictable in intent- Focused in methodologies- Inflexible in its overall programming and design

9. The process model is- Developmental in style- Unpredictable in content- Varied in its methodologies- Flexible in its programming and design

10. Uninformed State Prescription toUninformed Professional JudgementtoInformed Professional JudgementtoInformed State PrescriptiontoInformed State PrescriptionLooking to the future… move toInspired Community Action

11. … state prescription in educationvsa more “community-orientated”approach to teaching.The balance of these is being played out in an environment which is uncertain.It is in such an environment that we are now offering a professional education to teachers.

12. A model of a teacher that would avoid… teachers considering themselves as victims of a demanding, and even more oppressive system.They have to be highly educated professional who have a responsibility to the children and the communities whom they serve.

13. It is this inter-relationship among all three which develops the professionalism of the teacher. The inter-relationship is illustrated in the model below. Professional Values and Commitment Professional Knowledge and Understanding Professional Skills and Abilities