Making a Career of Learning | Professional Development

a teacher at work
Making a Career of Learning

Kounaikenshuu, a Japanese term that has no easy translation in the English language, describes a process that is foreign to most American schools: school-based professional development that Japanese teachers engage in throughout their careers. As authors of The Teaching Gap explain: "In the United States, teachers are assumed to be competent once they have completed teacher-training programs. Japan makes no such assumption. Participation in school-based professional-development groups is considered part of the teacher's job in Japan." The groups provide a context in which teachers are mentored and trained by their peers, and also a laboratory for the development and testing of new teaching techniques.

Although the high achievement of Japanese students often captures headlines in this country, Japan's culture for improving teaching merits more attention from school reformers in the United States, suggest Stigler and Hiebert. "What is most impressive about Japan is that the culture genuinely values what teachers know, learn, and invent, and has developed a system to take advantage of teachers' ideas: evaluating them, adapting them, accumulating them into a professional knowledge base, and sharing them."

Making a career of learning starts with the recognition that "a teaching career is a continuum, not a series of disconnected steps stacked on top of each other," according to the U.S. Department of Education report, Promising Practices. "A professional career begins with recruitment, continues through preparation and initial licensing, and extends to lifelong development. Every stage in this continuum must be rigorous."

A recent study of nine successful schools — urban elementary schools where children of color living in poverty have achieved impressive academic results — makes a powerful case for supporting teachers so that they can support their students. Hope for Urban Education, researched by the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin and published in 1999 by the U.S. Department of Education, reports that these schools differ in such factors as demographics, reform model, grade configuration, and others. But they share key strategies, including two relating to teacher support: school leaders make sure that teachers have adequate materials, equipment, and professional development; and school leaders create opportunities for teachers to work, plan, and learn together around instructional issues. As a result, the authors conclude, "educators in the nine schools exhibited a true sense of professionalism. They worked together (often on a daily basis) to improve their teaching and enhance student learning."

One of the report's key recommendations: more support for "high-quality, school-based professional development that dramatically increases the amount of time that educators spend working with and learning from each other."

In Actual Schools, Possible Practices, Novick stresses the critical role of the principal in creating a school environment that promotes ongoing teacher growth. "Collaborative inquiry can only thrive in a climate of mutual respect and interdependence," she writes. An effective school leader can make that climate more favorable by encouraging teachers to examine their classroom practices and beliefs, and structuring the school day so that teachers have time to devote to their own development as professionals. Schools that have been recognized by the Department of Education for model professional development tend to have strong principals. According to the authors of Islands of Hope in a Sea of Dreams, "Teachers need strong principals to support them, guide them, maintain a focus on the desired results, protect them from competing demands, and hold them on course."

The right questions can often help teachers advance their own learning. Novick highlights four broad topics worthy of ongoing inquiry and reflection:

Examining current practice: What does my teaching look like? Why do I work this way?
Setting priorities: Are my practices consistent with what is known about how people learn? Am I aware of alternative models of teaching?
Creating an optimal learning environment: What learning experiences are essential? What assessments are appropriate?
Expanding teacher knowledge through classroom research: What dilemmas, questions, or concerns about teaching and learning do I want to explore? How can I collaborate more with my colleagues? How will I share my research?

Raised by two teacher-parents in Montana, the young woman has always known she wanted to spend her career in the classroom. But now that she has a class of her own to lead, she hears a nagging voice, asking: "Will I be able to do it all? Will I be good enough? Will I find time to teach all that my students need, and teach it all effectively?"

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