SEMINAR (Semester-1)

SEMINAR (Semester-1)

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.