Teacher Professionalism and Dispositions - 1

Teacher Professional Attributes and Dispositions

Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.
Minnesota State University, Mankato
www.OPDT-Johnson.com
Andrew.johnson@mnsu.edu

This chapter explores the area of professionalism for teachers. Know that there are
widely differing views on exactly this is. That’s because one’s concept here is very highly
related to one’s teaching philosophy as well as one’s personal and professional values.

TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM
My definition of professionalism for teachers is based on the perspective I hold as a
holistic educator. These are the attributes that I believe define teacher professionalism. You will
need to identify and define your own.
1. You care about your students. This is the most professional of all behaviors. Caring
about your students sometimes means having to say the hard truths. You want the very best for
your students. You truly want them to reach their full potential as students and as humans
2. You relate to/with your students. Teaching starts with a relationship. Until then,
you are just a dancing monkey standing up in front of your students performing tricks.
3. You demonstrate unconditional positive regard (UPR) for your students, your
colleagues, and yourself. This is also related to #1 above (all things are related to this). To
teach fully you must accept your students unconditionally. You may not always accept their
behaviors, but you let them know that you accept them, as human beings, just the way that they
are. Your acceptance of them is not performance-based. Unconditional positive regard means
that you accept people (yourself, students, other teachers, and friends) as they are – not as you
would like them to be.
4. You prepare and are prepared. If you care about your students, if you care about
their learning and their impact on the world, you are prepared to teach them each day. They are
worthy of your time, effort, energy, creativity, and intellect. The planning and preparation of
your daily lessons, curriculum, and general classroom rules and procedures is a way of honoring
your students and the teaching profession.
5. You engage in personal and professional reflection. There are three levels of
reflection:
Level I. After every teaching episode you reflect to identify those things that worked well
and those things that could be don differently.
Level 2. You reflect to see if what you are doing aligns with what you know about
teaching and learning. Does it reflect best practice? Can you find research or research-based
theory to support what you are doing? Or is what you are doing based on ‘I-think-isms’.
Level 3. You reflect to see if what you are doing is in harmony with your values and your
philosophy. Hence the important of identifying said things.
6. You are willing to change and to grow. You do not see your current state as a
teacher or human as an end state. You see teaching and being human both as dynamic states. To
change and to grow is to be alive. To stay the same is to die. You realize that learning is never
complete. You engaged in some sort of professional development.

© Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.

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7. You invest in humans. An investment in yourself is the wisest sort of investment.

You spend time in some personal growth activities like daily reflection, personal reading,
meditation, spiritual activities, activities or endeavors that focus on the development of
interpersonal or intrapersonal intelligence, the arts, or social activities. You invest in yourself as
well in terms of diet, sleep, exercise, and recreation.
What is good for the teacher is good for the student. You see your students and other
humans as worth investing your time and energy as well. Thus, in your teaching you do not
simply attend to students frontal lobes. You try to attend to the whole child: their intelligence,
emotions, creativity, imagination, rationality, spirituality, intuition, and their social selves. You
create activities, lessons, and experiences that might lead to their total growth as human beings.
8. You are fully present in your teaching and being. You allow your whole self to be
present in your teaching. Your whole self is a tool that can help you perceive and understand
your students and your self. It also enables you to create better, more multi-dimensional learning
experiences. You are fully present in the moment. You are focused and thinking about your
teaching and your students. You allow yourself to use humor, emotions, intuition, intuition,
creativity, imagination, as well as logic and knowledge in your teaching and decision making.
When you are fully present in your teaching, teaching is fully present in your being. That
is, you carry your students with you. You think about them when you are not teaching.
Teaching and being become intertwined.
9. You allow students to see you. You are not simply your topic or your role. You are a
human and you present this human to your class. How much of you should be seen is always
something that should be decided by you, your students, and your particular teaching situation. I
allow the students in my graduate courses to see parts that I do not share with my undergraduate
students. I present different parts of myself to my undergraduates that I did with my 5th and 6th
grade students or my 2nd grade students.
10. You seek to understand. There are always reasons why humans act the way they
do. No behavior can be truly understood with out understand in which the behavior is displayed.
Sometimes negative behavior is a healthy response to an unhealthy situation.
11. You stand up for what you believe. When you see something detrimental to
students or their learning, you are willing to stand up and speak out. Standing up for what you
believe and speaking out is not always easy. Some people may not like you. There will be some
uncomfortable moments – but to be a professional – the rights of a professional educator –
comes with responsibilities. You are responsible for educating the public – for speaking truth to
power – for identifying effective and effective practices. In this way, you will be agents of
change.
Your Teacher Attributes
What are the attributes that you believe contribute to teacher professionalism? Identify
and describe at least five.

DISPOSITIONS
Besides knowledge and skills, effective teachers are also said to have a certain set of
dispositions (Chicoine, 2004). A disposition is a state of mind that creates an inclination to think
or act in certain ways. While we cannot observe a disposition, we can observe actions that seem
to reflect certain dispositions.
Some teacher preparation programs seek to identify and mandate certain dispositions that
“effective” teachers must have. Also, there are efforts by some scholars to measure specific

© Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.

 Teacher Professionalism and Dispositions - 3

dispositions in order to determine who is and is not an effective teacher. There even are schools
that seek to hire professional educators with the “right” attitude. Essentially these entities are
saying that there are certain states of mind that teachers must have. Another term for this is mind
control. To insist that another adopt your way of thinking is the ultimate form of domination and
control.
The teacher dispositions you select as being important will be highly influenced by your
personal teaching philosophy, your values, and your world view. To be of any value you must
ultimately develop, define, and internalize your own.
The dispositions below are those that I believe to be important; however, these are my
teaching dispositions. They are aligned with my teaching philosophy, values, and belief systems.
They may not be right for you.
Compassion. One seeks to empathize and seek to understand. One seeks to display
unconditional positive regard for students and faculty; and to try to understand the motivations
and environmental circumstances of students, parents, and faculty.
Kindness. One seeks to interact with students and faculty in a positive, benevolent
manner; to be friendly; to seek the highest good of others; and to nurture self, others, and the
environment.
Courage. One seeks to stand up for the rights of students, self, faculty, schools, and the
academic integrity of programs.
Right effort. One strives to engage and apply oneself in the act of knowing, planning,
teaching, and reflection.
Reflection. One seeks to think about one’s actions as a teacher and a person for the
intention of personal and professional growth. It is to define a philosophy and act based on that
philosophy.
Positive attitude. One seeks to think and speak in a manner that affirms, edifies, and
nurtures self, students, faculty and the environment.
Honesty and integrity. One seeks to speak the truth and to seek to act in the best
interests of students, parents, faculty, and the school or environment.
Professional respect. One seeks to celebrate differences of opinion and philosophies, to
communicate and compromise to find common goals, and to seek the common good.
Your Teaching Dispositions
So which dispositions are the correct ones? The ones that have the potential to bring you
and your students to a higher place and that are aligned with your core values, your teaching
philosophy, and your belief system.

Reference
Chicoine, D. (2004). Ignoring the obvious: A constructivist critique of a traditional teacher
education program. Educational Studies (36), 245-263.

Related Video Mini-lectures

Your Teaching Philosophy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_EymDEGT8

The Reflective Teacher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oH4xTTxfE

© Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.

 Teacher Professionalism and Dispositions - 4

Teacher Professional Development: Journey and Growth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqQJBz3aXj0

Personal and Professional Growth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfKGv9pOf8g

Questions and Activities

1. As a person, what dispositions or personal traits do you admire or strive to adopt?
2. Imagine yourself when you are teaching at your highest. What would we see?
3. As a teacher, what dispositions do you admire or strive to adopt?
4. Compare your identified dispositions to with another colleague’s. What do you notice?

empathy, truthfulness positive thinking (nurturing

self-control continence thoughts, positive
respect sobriety attitude)
kindness humility forgiveness
fairness non-judgment self-reflection
non-violence courtesy and reverence (contemplation)
honesty service to others integrity
fortitude courage empathy
harmony hard working nurturing words
creativity

© Andrew P. Johnson, Ph.D.