What are the key ideas around professional behaviour? Why does it matter? Where can we start? What does a Professional Teacher sound like?

1. Professiona
l Behaviour
Mark
Barratt
From Latin educat- ‘led out,’
from the verb educare, related to
educere ‘lead out’

2. • What are the key ideas around professional behavior?
• Why does it matter?
• Where can we start?
• What does a ProfessionalTeacher sound like?
Professional Conduct

3. Act like…?

4. Look Like…?

5. Teaching has a higher moral and social
purpose; it is an ethical activity.
The Four behaviours of Collegiality
1. Adults talk about practice
2. Adults observe each other in practice
and reflect
3.Adults work together to design, review
and evaluate curriculum.
4.Adults teach each other what they
know.
Judith Warren Little (1981) cited in Roland Barth
Thinking about, our daily practice, what
matters is relationship

6. Colleagues
Collegiality & Congeniality
• Colleagues are the glue of professional
life.
• Teaching is a team activity
• The relationships of adults in the schoolhouse are more
important than all others for it is this that determines
what students learn. (Roland Barth)

7. Relationships with Students
• Trust and respect characterise theTeacher- Student relationship.
• The message we want to give all students is “you are important, you can succeed and
we will not give up on you. (T, Patterson ASCD)
• “The guts of teaching is simple it’s about relation between a teacher and a group of
kids.”( HowardWilson)

8. Relationships with Parents
• Parents need to know you care
about their child.
• Parents know about their child.
• Respect is the glue of
relationship.
• Be willing to listen and hear.
• Seek collegial advice and support.
• Always respond to a parents
communication. (discuss)

9. So you have a meeting…

10. Meeting Roadblocks
• Being unprepared
• Arriving late
• Leaving early
• Laptops on checking
emails/surfing net.
• Texting under the table
• Disinterested body
language.
• Unprofessional alliances

11. Professionally Compromising

12. DefineYourself - Engage Meaningfully

13. DefineYourself - Build Relationships

14. Be aTeam Player

15. So what about the meetings?
How do you behave mindfully and navigate successfully through post
meeting issues?

16. Guerilla Meetings are held…
Subtext (we are invisible, saboteurs)

17. Camouflaged Agents
Subtext ( I only look like I’m supporting, but I’m not!.)

18. Heretic Posturers
Subtext (They don’t know what their doing, believe me, I was there!)

19. There can only be one outcome!
Use your ethical base, your wise mind, don’t participate in behaviour that
diminishes you professionally.

20. Become a co-constructor in your community
Authentic Builders
Subtext ( we choose to be professional participants in our community
of practice)

21. Why does it matter, what happens after
the meeting?
Schools are about improving outcomes for learners.
This is non negotiable as
our core function
It is our moral
imperative

22. However…
Schools are complex organizations…
• They are vanguards of change
and improvement.
• They are creative, synergetic
and multidimensional.
• They require collegiality and
congeniality.
• They are sometimes dissonant
and fearful.
• .

23. Organizational Complexity!
It is critical that we get it!
You are either a co-founder of an organization, or you are a
confounder.

24. There is no position available
in the middle!

25. So how do co-founding teachers behave?
• Common Good behaviours evidenced growing high levels of relational
trust
• Signal to others our allegiance to and trust in decisions and organisational
direction
• Constructively respond, Is this practice good? Is this practice appropriate
for us? Does it fit with our ideology and ambitions. Collins & Porras.
• Listen laterally to naysayers Iisten to your own voice, tell me your
concern, we can look at the evidence, (always give a fact formed story)
• Gear change Professionally move forward…cut, remove and stitch. Ask
and give feedback with kindness and clarity
• ‘WhiteTime’ Give yourself time to think freely, laterally and unconfined.
Then, ask the questions.Trust intentions.
• Behave Authentically and congruently, all the time!

26. So what is trust?
‘Relational trust with a strong moral purpose produces very tough cultures that
work diligently inside and outside the school to get results.’ Bryk & Schneider
(2002)
Schools (teachers) with high relational trust were more likely to evidence:
“orientation to innovation, professional community, outreach to parents, commitment
to school community.” Bryk & Schneider (2002)
‘Relational trust is the glue
of the school house.’
Roland Barth

27. So trust matters, how do we grow it?
• Teachers can provide vision, policy incentives, mechanisms for
interaction coordination and monitoring…but there must be
lateral development…ones own team giving and receiving… the
moral imperative then becomes a palpable endeavor.
• Competence Trust ( Trust of capability)
• Contractual Trust ( Trust of character)
• Communications Trust (Trust of disclosure)

28. What do we think about trust?
• Competence Trust ( Trust of capability)
• Contractual Trust ( Trust of character)
• Communications Trust (Trust of disclosure)

29. Trust is…
CompetenceTrust (trust of capability)
Respect peoples knowledge, skills and abilities.
Respect peoples judgment.
Involve others and seek their input.
Help people learn skills.
Reina & Reina (1999)

30. Trust is…
Contractual Trust ( trust of character)
Manage expectations.
Establish boundaries.
Delegate appropriately.
Encourage mutually serving intentions.
Honour agreements.
Be consistent.
Reina & Reina (1999)

31. Trust is…
CommunicationsTrust ( trust of disclosure)
Share information.
Tell the truth.
Admit mistakes.
Give and receive constructive feedback.
Maintaining confidentiality.
Speak with good purpose.
Reina & Reina (1999)

32. So, what about you?
• What do I do?
• What does this mean?
• How did I come to be
this way?
• How might I do this
differently, better?
Dean Fink (2005)
• Where do I find my moral compass?

33. True North

34. Where are you ? Show yourself!
The difference between the two destinations is the difference between living
inside outTrue North, and outside in, Magnetic North.
• Magnetic North (external values, pressures and people compromise
and modify your core values and those of your school.)
• True North (You, your team, and your school core values are delivered
in an authentic manner, that shows the world who you are from the
inside, and requires courage tenacity and resilience)

35. Co-constructing your Professional Profile

36. Professional Attributes
What will define your Professional Character?
• Resilient
• Ethical
• Moral
• Team player
• Inquisitive learner
• Co-constructor
of the Common Good
• Trustworthy
• Collegial
What will your professional imprint
look like?

37. Professional Efficacy
What actions do you need to take…?
 Become increasingly reflective- Journal/
Blog.
 Attend to the small things
 Practice professionally and with
mindfulness
 Value and grow your own professional
community
 Increase your professional competency,
through ongoing and active learning

38. Consider this…
I know your profession is hard and full of contradiction
of yourself, and I forsaw your complaint and knew that it
would come. Now that it has come I cannot comfort
you, I can only advise you to consider whether all
professions are not like that, full of demands, full of
enmity against the individual, saturated as it were with
the hatred of those who have found themselves mute
and sullen in humdrum duty.
The situation in which you now have to live is no more
heavily laden with conventions, prejudices and mistakes
than all the other situations, and if there are some that
feign a greater freedom, still there is none that is in itself
broad and spacious and in contact with the big things of
which real living exists.
( Rilke, 1954)
I know your profession is hard and full of contradiction
of yourself, and I forsaw your complaint and knew that it
would come. Now that it has come I cannot comfort
you, I can only advise you to consider whether all
professions are not like that, full of demands, full of
enmity against the individual, saturated as it were with
the hatred of those who have found themselves mute
and sullen in humdrum duty.
The situation in which you now have to live is no more
heavily laden with conventions, prejudices and mistakes
than all the other situations, and if there are some that
feign a greater freedom, still there is none that is in itself
broad and spacious and in contact with the big things of
which real living exists.
( Rilke, 1954)

39. Be confident in your conduct, trust your in
your ability, listen to wise friends
‘And be yourself… everyone else is taken’
Oscar Wilde