Committed Professionals
At this point in your education, you are transitioning from being a student to becoming a
professional educator. With that transition comes great responsibility. Professionalism is an
attitude and internal guide to our behavior. According to Regie Routman (1999), to do our job
well means being professional in highest sense of the word. Being professional encompasses the
following roles:
• Learner
View yourself as a model learner. “Being able to listen, question, explore, and
discover are more important than having all the ‘right answers’” (p. 2). Life-long
learners belong to professional organizations, read current research and attend local
and national conferences to keep up to date on new understandings in their field.
• Scholar
“We can glean much from authors, experts, and colleagues, but to be scholarly about
our learning, we have to reflect upon it, challenge it, and ‘push the envelope’” (p. 3).
• Communicator
“Being a clear communicator to our students’ families, our students, our colleagues,
and our extended school community is one of our most important professional roles”
(p.4). Professional teachers are comfortable articulating why they are doing what they
are doing.
• Leader
A leader is someone who believes everyone can contribute to the conversation and
has something important to say. A leader “gets things done” because it is for the
overall good of the school, class, or student.
• Political activist
Education is political. We need to feel comfortable asking questions and challenging
information when necessary. Teachers are agents of change and are responsible for
creating just and equitable classrooms environment for their students.
• Researcher
A teacher researcher is an observer and learner, who looks and looks again, questions
assumptions, reconsiders practice, and continues to questions what happens in the
classroom (Bissex as quoted in Routman, p. 7). Professionals also ask their own
questions and collect and analyze data to answer their questions.
• Role model for kindness
“How we lead our lives and conduct ourselves with others is one of the most
important marks of the professional teacher… How we treat each other, our students,
and their families greatly impacts our effectiveness as teachers” (p.7). “We are not
only literacy role models for our students; we are also, always models of human
behavior” (p.8).
Routman, R. (1999). Conversations: Strategies for teaching, learning, and evaluating.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.