This document discusses teacher identity and the teaching profession. It makes several key points: 1) Teaching used to be a passion but is now more of a profession with increasing pressures, though it remains an important and demanding job. 2) Good teachers have a strong subject knowledge and passion for teaching that inspires students, sees teaching as an intellectual pursuit, and connects on a personal level. 3) For teachers to be effective, they must commit fully to continuous professional learning and development, and see teaching as their primary identity and responsibility.

1. A.JAHITHA BEGUM, Ph.D
Professor & Head
Department of Education
Gandhigram Rural Institute
Deemed University
Gandhigram
Teacher Identity

2. TEACHER

3. • 'A student spends 25,000 hours in the campus.
The school must have the best of teachers who
have the ability to teach, love teaching and
build moral qualities' - A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM

4. • Teaching is now a
profession rather
than a passion and
thus there is a
paradigm shift in
the perception of
teachers.

5. Today’s teacher is as busy and as pressurized as
a software professional.

6. Recently, it has been reported in the press, that
the higher salaries for a specified sector is
because they take more risks and the
teaching profession is one in which risk
factors are absolute minimal.

8. Good Teachers are costly
but bad teachers cost more.

9. • Let us all remember that the risk of teachers is
not felt today but certainly when it is felt, it is
rather irrepairable and the society has to pay
very heavily at a later time.

10. The candidates appearing for teaching
jobs lack the required fundamental
knowledge and the desired motivation
levels for teaching.

11. The society should recognize that teaching is
a serious profession and it demands
considerable time and effort.

12. • It is to be realized that anybody and
everybody cannot be a teacher.
• Also, it is to be noted that there are no set
procedures and bench marks to evaluate the
teaching methods

13. Redefine the responsibilities
• Today, the information is freely available in
abundance; thus the responsibility of the
teachers has shifted to evoke innovative and
adoptive thinking and analyses.

14. • The theme of teaching is
towards global thinking
with local applications.
Today, the student is
clear in his career paths
and is also clearer of his
challenges in the global
markets.

15. • the commitment, dedication, teaching
methodology and professional standards
need to be redefined.

16. • One possible solution to meet the demand of
imparting knowledge is to employ the modern
technology : web based education, like
national Program on Technology Enhanced
Learning (NPTEL)

17. • a teacher must
have a sound
knowledge of the
subject and its
place in our
culture.

18. • Teaching is not an exact, well-defined
activity; it is a very difficult and demanding
profession.

19. Perspectives on Teacher Identity
– All teachers develop a view of what a “good
teacher” does (their role/s and practices)
– The “good teacher” identity is a desirable one (a
positive ‘possible self’ – Holland, et al., 1998)
that influences the choices teachers make.

20. • teaching provides
opportunities for
intellectual
development.
• It brings those who
pursue it into
intimate contact
with books,
experiments, and
ideas.
•

21. • It stimulates the desire for increased
knowledge and for wider intellectual
contacts. Actually, no teacher can be really
successful in performing his duties unless he
is intellectually curious.

22. The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and
Integrity in Teaching
Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique. Good
teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the
teacher.

23. • EMOTION
• DRIVES
• ATTENTION
• DRIVES
•
• LEARNING

24. To teach is to create a space in which
the community of truth is practiced.”
Truth is an eternal conversation about
things that matter, conducted with
passion and discipline.

25. “Passion for the subject propels that subject,
not the teacher, into the center of the learning
circle – and when a great thing is in their
midst, students have direct access to the
energy of learning and of life.”

26. • “Good teachers join self and subject and
students in the fabric of life … They are able
to weave a complex web of connections
between themselves, their subjects and
their students so that students can learn to
weave a world for themselves.”

28. • “The connections
made by good teachers
are held not in their
methods but in their
hearts – meaning heart
in the ancient sense, as
the place where
intellect and emotion
and spirit will converge
in the human self.”

29. The Heart of a Teacher
• “The courage to teach is
the courage to keep
one’s heart open in
those very moments
when the heart is asked
to hold more than it is
able, so that teacher
and students and
subject can be woven
into the fabric of
community that
learning, and living,
require.”

30. Good teaching comes from Identity and
Integrity in Teaching
• What we teach will never “take” unless it connects with
our students’ inward teachers.
• We can speak to that teacher within our students only
when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within
ourselves.

31. Commitment to the Profession
• If teachers do not enjoy
their work and have
doubts about their
careers, they should
reexamine their
attitudes and intentions
and, one hopes, they
will renew their
commitments to
education.

32. • Teaching is not simply an ordinary job; it is
the profession that they willingly choose to
pursue. Teaching is how they establish their
identity and manifest their values.

33. • Teachers must devote their time and energies
to their professional activities.
• They should ask themselves, for instance, to
what extent are they involved in the new
course that have been introudced?

34. • In what way have they affected the shifts in
subject matter, and the change in methods of
instruction that have occurred?
• Do they attend professional meetings and
help formulate professional policies?
• What attemps have they made to give
direction to educational and social change?

35. • With committed teachers, efficient
organizations, and a sympathetic public, the
teaching profession will soon transform itself
into a leading profession, and will bear this
responsibility with confidence and pride.