Do you receive adequate professional development from your school?

 
TeAch-nology.com's Teacher Poll of the Week
Do you receive adequate professional development from your school?
No 57.0%
Yes 43.0%

Total Votes: 894


 
 
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Professional development days mean different things to different people. Students simply see it as an extra day off school. Often these days fall at the beginning of the week, so parents can use it to have a mini vacation with their children or alternately they may grumble about having to find day care for their youngsters. For teachers, however, professional development days play a vital role in the education system.

Many professional organizations require their members to participate in annual continuing education (CE) programs. They must acquire a pre-determined number of these credits per year. Veterinarians and Animal Health Technologists, for example, are required to keep up to date with continuing education or else lose their standing with their professional organizations. This policy makes sense because you wouldn't want to take your beloved pet to a veterinarian who hasn't updated their thinking or knowledge for the past twenty years.

The same can be said for our children's teachers. Keeping up with current trends and improving on their knowledge base is extremely important for future generations. The majority of teachers in this poll believe they do not receive adequate professional development opportunities from their school, but the margin certainly wasn't overwhelming. This result is encouraging in two ways. It is definitely positive to know that almost half of teachers polled feel they are able to keep up with current educational ideas and teaching trends.

On the flip side, the fact that a little more than half of the teachers who participated in the poll feel that they would like more opportunities to learn and expand their knowledge base is also positive. This means that teachers are still eager to learn and are willing to open themselves up to new ideas and possible change. This is the attitude that teachers need in order to stay relevant and prepare the next generation for the challenges that lay ahead. This is more important now than ever before because the rate of change in modern society is fast and furious. As long as teachers remain hungry for knowledge they can impart this learning attitude onto the students they teach and instil a lifelong love of learning.