Young teacher applicants to the Teach Plus Policy Fellows Program indicate that contrary to the opinions of those who believe they are in teaching only for the short term, they actually want to find a way to continue teaching. Their description of the profession they seek--one that makes a difference, challenges them, engages them as leaders, and…

How training and employment of educators in East Germany compare with conditions in a free country is described. (CB)

Teacher professionalism and educational restructuring have the same goal--to make teachers more responsive to their students. To transform teaching into an authentic profession involves six changes: reforming teacher education and licensing, restructuring schools, reforming unions, improving accountability, and bettering salaries and working…

Previous educational reform efforts have not made significant, lasting improvements because they focused on correcting visible structural flaws. Educational organizations are social organisms held together by a symbolic webbing, not formal systems driven by goals, official roles, commands, and rules. Deep structures and practices must be…

A survey of 360 teachers showed that many teachers are voluntarily using their own money to support their classroom work. On average, the teachers surveyed spent $444 annually; teachers nationwide may be spending more than $1 billion annually. Respondents' comments ranged from outrage and frustration with lack of available funds to acceptance of…

As one survey shows, although collegiality within academic departments determined secondary teachers' innovation norms, conceptions of students, sense of subject area, and enthusiasm, teacher commitment and pride are primarily products of district-level influences. Teacher autonomy without strong district professional community, with its…

Today's staff developers are truly social architects aiming to build a culture of learning by transforming the workplace. When teachers and principals develop as caretakers of learning communities and as collaborators, problem seekers, action researchers, and designers of responsive student-centered curricula, then schoolwork will become more…

To stay on the job, exhausted teachers need to get massages or do yoga, exercise regularly, get a pet or a plant to care for, recruit "wannabe" friends to teaching, surround themselves with appreciative friends, seek colleagues' assistance, and take real vacations to recharge batteries. (MLH)

Intrator and Kunzman argue that professional development for teachers follows an orientation similar to Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs--and that this orientation needs to be reversed. Maslow posited that people must fulfill subsistence needs such as needs for food and safety before they can pursue higher needs like the need for…

For the art of teaching to have a future, we must enlarge our understanding of professionalism to include the artistic skills and judgment demanded by good teaching. This task will challenge educators, because teaching artistry is neither well understood nor readily mandated by the central office. Includes nine references. (MLH)

The inability to teach anything in high school other than what the curriculum dictates due to lack of time, and the near impossibility of getting to know one's students due to large numbers who are generally indifferent and often ill behaved, are two of the most common refrains sung by teachers of adolescents. A profile of four teachers, who…

Teachers need different types of communities to sustain and inspire them. They seek like-minded "outsiders" committed to learning and discussing what they learn. When the author invited "San Francisco Chronicle" readers to help convince his students about reading's importance, he received 1,000 helpful replies. (MLH)

Teachers more often speak of professionalism in terms of environmental conditions than in terms of standards and dispositions. In 1989, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards devised a certification process that recognizes teachers for subject area expertise and for demonstrating what they know about students in early childhood or…

Argues against the notion that teachers lack vision, asserting instead that the educational power structure and the realities of teaching every day prevent teachers from being heard or from realizing their visions. Suggests that those urging more outspoken involvement in educational improvement from teachers are overly optimistic. (PGD)

A Learning Consortium formed by 4 school districts and 2 higher education institutions in the Toronto area brings together teachers, administrators, and professors in a collegial partnership that focuses on educators' sustained professional development. In a "living laboratory" environment, the group works to link classroom and school…