Sharing Good Practice
Is teaching a profession
or a vocation?
By Gregory Anderson
Such a dynamic relationship would be
essential, though, for those aristocrats
sent to live as wards to be educated
away from their family. Here the values
of the teacher would be seen as
considerable as their academic ability.
This vocational purpose of nurturing
well-being, on the radar after being
established as the purpose of
education for the Greeks, is a difficult
one for a profession to quantify and
hence genuinely promote.
The desire to quantify teaching
comes from the corporate belief that
institutions thrive better by focusing
on systems rather than relying upon
individuals. Maverick teachers can
also raise issues of whether a parent
wants their child to be taught by a
different teacher. This is often based
not on results, but rather charisma.
A corporate model of teaching also
shifts teachers around schools based
on perceived need, further breaking
relationships and prioritising systems.
T
eaching holds a peculiar status
in the Western world. Despite
mixed messages in the media,
teachers are often well liked by
parents and students who know them.
Even occasionally immature student
diatribes are always capped with a
bizarrely deferential 'Sir' or 'Miss'!
This status is, in part, due to the
responsibility of teachers, especially
humanities teachers, to guide students
in making life choices and to help them
develop a sense of what is moral.
However, for decades there has been
a loud call for teaching to present itself
as a profession, that teachers should
charge for ‘inspiration’ by the hour.
Would this lead to attracting and
retaining our best teachers?
Is there, in our best teachers, a set
of values and dispositions already
inculcated?
And what causes the charismatic
teacher to sometimes flop, while the
quiet one thrives presumably against
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expectations?
I found, when training teachers at
York University, that vocational values
are not easily discernible in the
training process. In the same way that
customer service can be delivered with
factual fulfilment, yet no sense of care,
teachers can deliver results without
inspiring passionate learning. We
rightly task teachers to make people
curious about things they should really
be interested in, but for some reason
are not.
Passionless, shallow learning can be
triggered by the uneasy relationship
some students have with authority
figures. The students most able to learn
come to the classroom with at least
one good relationship with authority
already fostered. Yet affection for
authority figures often, for the British,
transgresses into ridicule - see recent
literature from Dickens to The Beano.
Portraying schoolmasters as figures of
(unspoken) fun is a method of showing
the fluctuating power relationships
between a master and a student.
Class Time
The strongest inclination to prioritise
the professional aspect of teaching
amongst teachers, however, is in
managing workload. The bureaucracy
can be crushing. Those teachers
and schools with the confidence and
courage to manage workload do
not need to professionally charge
by the hour to complete paperwork,
but
rather
use
established,
innovative methods to do so - this is
a consideration at school-level, not
teacher-level.
Ultimately, the vocational element of
teaching should be the responsibility
of those outside each teaching
institution. We should expect each
teacher to come to the classroom
with his/her own reasons to teach.
Ultimately, paying and educating
teachers equal to those in other
professions such as medicine and law,
attracts the very best academically.
However, nurturing a teacher's
vocation is the responsibility of all
those who have influenced that
person. Such human relations can
never truly be institutionalised or
professionalised, which is why seeing
teaching as a profession over all else is
problematic.