DESIGNING – TEACHER: PROFESSION OR VOCATION

Firstly, the role of the teacher should be put into discussion of what makes teaching both a
profession and a vocation. A profession according to Professional Standards Council can be
defined as “a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards”, as well as
“possessing special knowledge and skills… at a high level” and “preparing to apply the
knowledge and exercise these skills in the interests of others”. Author J.A Buijs commented
that “skill or expertise in teaching is not only discipline specific” and that “there is
admittedly more to teaching than expert knowledge of a subject matter” (p. 333). This
means that there is more to teaching than just knowing one’s area of expertise or key
learning area. Buijs further argued that a teacher should understand pedagogy, as well as
the curriculum that they’re prescribed with and the criteria of the assessments they will be
handing out to their students. Therefore, an effective teaching profession also requires the
interconnection of these elements in addition to a competent and consistent level of
practical skills and their applications. A vocation is defined as a “person’s employment or
main occupation that requires dedication” according to Oxford Dictionary. The term can
also refer to any career choice that “connotes a calling in life that consists of distinctive roles
or functions” (Buijs 2005, p.344). Furthermore, teaching as a vocation is a means to
acknowledge the call to serve others through the means of education and learning and that
pre-service teachers don’t take up the vocation out of self-interest, but rather out of the
willingness to educate individuals, “therefore anchoring in a habitus of hope and
perspective” (Roebben 2016, p.235) to keep students motivated, engaged and willing to
succeed. The notion of teachers being both a profession and vocation can be referred to
both Article 1 and 2 of the APST with knowing the students and how they learn to cater to
their learning needs and knowing the content how to effectively teach it to ensure that
students are getting the knowledge that they are entitled to. With exceptional knowledge
of their own key learning area and skills as well as critical understanding of the curriculum
and properly utilising pedagogical methods according to the APST, teachers can inherit the
role as professional and vocational educators that can deliver students a satisfying learning
experience.

Curriculum is another foundational concept that can help in establishing what it means to
be an effective teacher. A curriculum can be defined as a “blueprint” for what teachers will
be teaching and what students will be learning. This is important as it is essential for the
 DESIGNING – TEACHER: PROFESSION OR VOCATION

content to be set out, ensuring that students will be learning at the expected quality level.
Each state and territory in Australia follow their own curriculum with New South Wales
receiving their own set from the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA).
There has been a debate regarding the Australian national curriculum in which all states and
territory receive the same curriculum prescribed by the Australian Curriculum Assessment
and Reporting Authority (ACARA). There are many propositions about the benefits of
including a national curriculum, such as the Australian curriculum promoting the importance
of striving for excellence as well as ensuring that students are learning what they are
supposed to learn and are entitled to knowledge, understanding and skills that provide
them with lifelong success within the Australian community. Additionally, the national
curriculum would be designed in relevance to the multicultural population of the country,
including Indigenous Australians. This would result in a learning experience that further
connects to the experiences of young Australians in diverse physical and economic
locations. Furthermore, another praise of the curriculum would be its treatment towards
arts subjects such as Drama, Dance and Music and Visual Arts. They would be regarded with
the same worth as the other subjects such as English, Maths, Science, History which tend to
be most prioritised. However, one argument against a national curriculum is that the
curriculum would not be inclusive for all students, whether they are indigenous, have
disadvantaged backgrounds, are disabled, etc. While the national curriculum does aim to
equally teach students the same knowledge that they are entitled with, it is not equitable in
that students would not get the same quality of learning that they are supposed to be
entitled with. This can serve as a challenge to teachers and educators alike as there are
many students of different backgrounds, such as ethnicity, socio economic class, gender,
etc. and not everyone will have the same quality learning experience when studying one
part of the curriculum. Therefore, teachers must take a creative approach in their pedagogy
when tutoring their students as simply following the curriculum and assessment
requirements will not ensure an all-inclusive and satisfying learning experience for every
student. Teachers can consider a student’s background, whether they are a of low SES,
disabled or different ethnicity and try to cater the lesson to that certain student’s needs as
well as the rest of the class.
 DESIGNING – TEACHER: PROFESSION OR VOCATION

Furthermore, pedagogy contributes to making secondary teaching an effective vocation and

profession. Pedagogy refers to the method and practice of teaching, and there are many
approaches in which a teacher can effectively utilise pedagogy. They can generate
numerous interests in the classroom for the students to be engaged with, create an
inclusive environment in which students are willing to interact with the teacher and each
other, and make the lesson fun to leave a positive impression amongst students so that they
can remember the contents of the lesson. Furthermore, teachers can also relate the
contents of the lesson to students’ past knowledge to cater the lesson to their needs,
monitor the students so that the teachers can help and assess them at their level of
understanding and progress and build trust with the students to demonstrate care and
commitment to each other. Bert Roebben commented on how the movie Dead Poets
Society showcased a skilful demonstration of pedagogy that left a deep positive impression
on students due to Robin William’s passionate portrayal of being a good leader. Roebben
also said that “pedagogical ethos is not only about augmenting motivation of the teacher to
do “more” (love, passion, dedication), it is also about making a well-informed discernment
to do “less” to step aside and not to feel inappropriately responsible” (p. 237). This can
relate to one of the characteristics of the teaching profession and Article 4 of the APST due
to both requiring the teacher to uphold ethical standards responsibly to maintain a safe and
supportive learning environment for the students. Field pedagogy can be one effective
method of teaching as it aims to expand on a teacher’s pedagogical method and explore
different ways in which the curriculum design can be approached. In recent years,
Australian scholars and field educators have commented on the implications of field
pedagogy and its relevance to social work education. One argument surrounding the
effectiveness of it is that it can improve on student socialisation and prepare for future
practical tasks when they engage in the profession in the future. Additionally, field
pedagogy could provide an early insight into a potential profession so that students can
thoughtfully consider future career options and be motivated and have purpose to strive for
success at school. This type of pedagogical method could serve of real importance as jobs
and employments require effective communication and social skills and engaging in field
pedagogy can improve on a student’s communication skills in the long term, therefore it
would be potentially a good pedagogical method that teachers can implement, as long as it
complies with the APST.
 DESIGNING – TEACHER: PROFESSION OR VOCATION

Finally, assessment also serves as an important component of effective teaching.

Assessment refers to the monitoring of students’ progress and grading on their performance
and providing them with feedback in hopes of improvement for the future. Assessment
doesn’t limit itself to just tests and projects, but they can also be of informal nature like
asking a student a question in class about a previously covered topic to observe progress or
it can be naturalistic in which students don’t realise they are being assessed but teachers
gain useful knowledge for feedback. Article 5 of the APST goes through the standards of
guidelines of assessment, with assessing student learning, providing feedback to students
on their learning and making consistent and comparable judgements, interpreting student
data and reporting on student achievement. There have been many ways in which Australia
assesses their students with The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy
(NAPLAN) is one of the most frequently discussed and controversial form of assessment in
Australia. The NAPLAN serves as a nationwide assessment of every schools’ literacy and
numeracy skills, and due to the standardised nature, in which it involves participants
answering the same distributed questions and are graded in the same way, and as a result,
there have been talks of how the test is not equitable for all. In a journal by Ford 2012,
there was an achievement gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians with a
concept of “locked-in inequality”, in which indigenous Australians are consistently and
constantly disadvantaged. This could possibly be due to the disadvantaged remote areas
where most indigenous Australians live as they only have guaranteed access to missionary
education and limited to primary and secondary education due to distance. Another
complaint against the NAPLAN test is that it can cause high levels of stress and anxiety
within children and teenagers due to the apparent stressing that the NAPLAN is an
important factor that gets kids into good high schools and teenagers getting into the HSC.
Teachers can alleviate this by gathering information of the students’ discrepancies by
discussing what they’re struggling within literacy and numeracy and they can cater their
pedagogy to help the students that are falling behind in those areas. Effective teaching not
only requires being a good role model, knowing the curriculum and have skilful applications
of pedagogy, but they also must assess on their students and give them feedback for them
to improve, and they should adapt to each of the student’s different backgrounds by
assessing them based on their needs.