The flipside of it being holiday time is that it means I've finished my latest contract. I spent four weeks in a new school teaching a group of delightful little five year old people. More about them and what we did together later, because right now I need to talk about teacher standards.
There's been the usual 
I am never likely to say that there isn't room for improvement in both our pre-service teacher education programmes or ongoing teacher standards BUT... I want to take these naysayers into classrooms; staff rooms; teachers' homes and cars and show them just how much effort goes into being the kind of teacher we all aspire to be. I want to point to the AITSL standards and ask how they think we progress through the four stages if not without training and development. I want to find a way to share with them the fact that for many of us teaching is not a job but a way of life because of the commitment we give to the children in our care. I want to know what happened in their schooling to cause such negative perceptions of teachers. And I want to have their child in my class so that I can show them just how wrong they are.
We all know that this won't happen though and so my next best option is to keep working toward being the teacher I aspire to be. I'll keep taking every opportunity I find to develop my skill and knowledge base. I'll keep making opportunities! I'll keep talking and networking with other professionals I admire. I'll keep reading. I'll keep writing. I'll keep going. And I'll keep teaching.
So, my questions to you are these:
- How do you as a teacher demonstrate your commitment and development of professional standards?
- How do you as a parent want to see these demonstrated to you?
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