Continuing Professional Development(CPD)
The MHRD, Government of India,
document on ‘Restructuring and Reorganization of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme
on Teacher Education: Guidelines for implementation ( 2012 ) has given clear
policy directives for continuing professional development and capacity building
of teacher educators across all levels of education ( Ch. XI; 2:39(f) ) : DIET
faculty ( 4:32), academic staff of CTE ( 5:6 ), and faculty of IASEs ( 6:7 ).
The document envisages faculty development to be a continuous process in order
to upgrade the knowledge and skills of their faculty and ensure that the
nation’s children have access to quality teachers and quality education in its
schools. How best can we discharge this function and make our efforts bear the
desired results and explore newer and effective ways form the core of
discussion in this paper.
The Present Scenario
Continuing professional development of teacher educators has always been in
place. But today it has got a renewed mandate under Teacher Education Mission.
The question is how seriously it is being pursued and with what results. We
only need to look at the results to decide what processes need to be put in
place. Anything that we do needs to be goal oriented. Are our present efforts
giving us the results in terms of the goals? If they do not and yet we continue
with them, it smacks of ritualism. If we do the same things over and over, we
only get the same results. So if we want different results, we need to change
our actions!
There are a couple of things that
I would like to point out with regard to our present efforts with the
continuing education of teacher educators. First of all, it is a top down
approach. The authorities decide what the teacher educators need to learn. It
is something that is done to them. Therefore, most educators resist it and yet
go through with it lest they invite negative consequences for themselves. If
this is the case, it goes against the very fundamentals of what learning is.
For any serious learning, the learner engagement is an absolute necessity. If
wefurther reflect on the scenario, this is how education is practiced in
schools – pushing information and knowledge on students who are unwilling to
learn!
Secondly, the approach to training
is mostly didactic and prescriptive. It may sound very erudite and one may get
the feeling of becoming knowledgeable. But its take home effect and the ability
to put it into practice is negligible. Just getting informed does not suffice
for the purpose of professional development.
Thirdly, often professional development
efforts are clinical and find fault with the present practices. This will only
serve to further dis-empower the teacher educators. If this is so, it would be
like the treatment becoming worse than the disease itself. This is not to deny
the fact that there are things that need to be changed.
1. Development of the person of the
educator – Intra-personal skills
All of us have a personal or ‘inner side’ as well
as an ‘outer side’ that is represented by our actions and behaviors. The two
are intertwined. It is the inside that is the cause of the outside. The reality
of our experience is totally subjective. All our actions and the results that
we produce are in terms of the persons that we are. That is, all our behaviors
are ‘inside – out ‘, but the illusion under which we live is the ‘outside – in
‘paradigm, that is, we believe that our behaviors are caused by others and the
situations! The tipping point is when we realize that all our behaviors are
caused from the inside, and give away our ‘outside – in’ explanation. Doing so
is totally transformative and empowering. There is a lot of work that we need
to do with our inner side, which consists of our thoughts, beliefs ,feelings
and emotions, drives, motivations, aspirations, interests, values and
principles, attitudes and commitments and so on. This is the engine/energy that
drives us to do or not to do or how to do things. Working with the inner side
leads to selfgrowth and self-empowerment. Education has neither acknowledged
its importance so far nor attempted to develop it in a systematic way. Maslow
had acknowledged that the problems that we face both as persons and as humanity
is because people are not growing as persons.
2. Development of interpersonal /
facilitative attitudes and skills
Teaching is as much or even more about learning to relate to students as
it is about imparting knowledge and skills. Therefore, it goes without saying
that the teacher educators’ interpersonal skills and attitudes, what we usually
refer to as facilitative skills, are crucially important for an effective
educator. When students resist learning, whether it is in the primary classes
or postgraduate classes, it is often that they are resisting the teacher! If we
observe the use of teacher power in the classroom, it is most of the time
authoritarian or patronizing, both of which inhibit and suppress students. If education is the cultivation of the whole
child, the teacher needs to have the skills of facilitation for students’
overall growth and learning. Often it is the socio-emotional issues that the
students are faced with that stand in the way of their academic learning.
3. Development of academic and
pedagogic competence
Learning to teach is a lifelong developmental
process and one gradually discovers one’s own style through training and
learning through reflection as well as critical inquiry. Training is a process
that amplifies and provides a context for learning in the three main areas,
namely,
·
Subject
contents and how to apply them ( the knowledge base of teaching),
·
Skills
of teaching and learning the best practices ( the Pedagogical base of teaching
),
·
Attitudes
and values ( the facilitative base of teaching )
Conclusion
Through the three dimensional
training intervention proposed in the paper, we take conscious steps toward
empowering teacher educators with personal, facilitative and professional
attitudes and competencies that will help them contribute to the preparation of
teachers with such attitudes and skills. In doing this we are responding to the
concerns expressed by most of our recent policy documents like preparing
reflective, student-centered, with democratic attitude and practice, being able
to respond to students’ emotional needs and thus, are able to create a positive
and nurturing learning climate. The path is long and arduous as some of the
aspects that we deal with militate against strongly held habits, beliefs and
attitudes held away from our conscious mind in the subconscious. But the effort
is worth it! There is always light at the end of a tunnel.
