Educational practice considers not only how I teach, but also how I conduct my activities as an educator.
How do I communicate with other adults?
Do I collaborate effectively?
Do other educators enjoy collaborating with me?
Do I take risks to innovate?
What is my privacy policy?
Am I an active listener?
Do I keep my promises?
Do I know why I’m here? (Feel free to define here as broadly as you want.)
This is a very incomplete list of questions, and I don’t have all of these questions answered.
As a professional educator, I am not only identified by my classroom teaching. The non-teaching part of the practice carries way more importance than most realize. Each email to a parent, each committee meeting, each conversation in the teacher’s lounge communicates my values and beliefs about myself, my students, and my place in the community.
If I consistently communicate through my practice that I am a professional educator, I will be treated as such, most of the time. If I communicate anything else, I will be treated as a teacher. This might not be such a bad thing, depending on the community. But it’s almost never the best thing.
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