Challenges and Opportunities for Schools: Respect and Professionalism

Abstract

In this article I reflect on the teaching profession for today, and tomorrow, and focus on three issues I find essential. The first issue is the importance of cultivating young people’s civic engagement in democratic societies at each school level. By civic engagement I refer to people’s understanding of what it means to be a citizen with the rights, obligations, and responsibilities that follow on being a citizen in a democratic society. One crucial pillar of democracy is a population that will participate in decision-making on social issues; thus we must ensure that each generation of young people develops an interest in and concern about social issues, and the skills to engage about them. In cultivating this engagement, it is essential to foster their social awareness, including their interpersonal competence, ethical awareness, and emotional growth. The second issue is promoting the development of schools and of teachers as professionals, with a focus on helping teachers to reflect on their work in a professional learning community at each school level. Through such work, both teachers and principals strengthen their educational visions, clarify their aims and values, and orient their teaching activities more towards the goal of enhancing students’ growth and welfare. Simulataneously, they build professional capital in education. The third issue is enhancing teachers’ identity as professionals, with a focus on their self-respect and respect for the teaching profession. Respect in the teaching profession is an important factor in educating children and adolescents successfully and in preparing them to participate in increasingly complicated societies. These three interconnected concerns, which provide the field with various opportunities and challenges, shape the article. I call for collaboration and shared responsibility among the government, teacher education institutions, schools and researchers, to strengthen teacher education and school development—along with our respect for teaching as a profession.