In Sanskrit, there is a saying 'Sanghe shaktih kalau yuge' which means organization holds the key to strength in modern times. Here the word organisation also means association and network. Being on a network makes a crucial difference in one's career and professional attitude. With the help of network, one not only develops and rises, but also snowballs strength to help others to move on. Moreover, it's the members of the network who make it as strong and learning-conducive as it can be. I have realised the power of professional network myself. I experienced it myself as I have been on several networks such as NELTA, Hornby Alumni, ELTeCS, State Alumni, AsiaTEFL, IATEFL and others. My affiliation with these networks has not only helped me in enhancing my professionalism but it has also helped me to initiate several teacher support activities including a formal academic programme at the University setting. As I have mentioned in my biography that when I initiated the MEd in ELT programme, there were not people in the department of the university. But because I had contact with ELT professionals from Tribhuvan University and other institutions through NELTA, I was able to create synergy required to launch a programme. At NELTA, there has been a literal give and take. NELTA provided me with opportunities to realise my potentials and with those realised potentials, I explored newer avenues for NELTA to grow into a bigger platform.
However, I have not seen any much discussion on this phenomenon. The only research carried out so far is the one by Ana Falcao from Brazil who did her Masters thesis on teacher associations (TA) at Leeds University in 2004. There are a few papers presented at conferences in defence of the teacher associations showing their importance on teacher professional development and an IATEFL handbook on setting up teacher associations. This shows that the issue of teacher networks in relation to educational change including teacher professional development has not come into the mainstream academic discussions. Or maybe I have limited information.
I would appreciate your inputs and sights in this regard
Regards
Laxman
Comments
amolpadwad
Dear Laxman,
I fully agree with you about the importance of teacher networks in teachers' professional develoment. There are several studies thatexplore the impact of networks in teachers' growth and performance. But I too feel that the role of formal TAs in teachers' development still needs to be investigated a lot.
From my personal experience I can say that a teacher is usually a member of several different networks at a time, and often these multiple memberships not only enrich him/her professionally, they also contribute to sustaining participation in networks.
We have been experimenting with informal, small and totally voluntary self-help groups of teachers (called 'English Teachers' Clubs') for the past four years. And we have very clear indicators that involvement in these groups immensely helps the personal and professional development of teachers. We have also come across similar experiments in other parts of the world (e.g. Taiwan and US) which report similar findings.
You have written about the synergy you could create among different ELT professionals. I would go ahead and say that there is also a need to create synergy among various networks that a teacher is part of. We are part of various kinds of networks at any given time. These networks are diverse in terms of size, formality, specialisation, flexiblity and so on. One can be a member of a small in-school group, a bit larger local-town teachers' committee, a regional chapter and a national/ international association all at the same time. I believe that one's participation in one network has (usually supportive) impact on the participation in others. This is another issue that,I feel, needs to be researched in depth.
Thanks for raising a very significant issue. Look forward to more discussion on these lines.
Amol
laxman_gnawali
Dear Amol,
Many thanks Amol for rich feedback as well taking the issue further. The significance of teacher networks for teacher professional development is obvious. Realising this, a lot of efforts have been made towards supporting teacher networks the latest being STA (Strengthening Teacher Associations) project of the British Council that ran for two years in the CSA region leaving concrete results in the strengths and the way the TA’s function. We are well aware of the networks like ELTeCS. My concern has been that the there has not been a formal discussion on the issue. In this entry I would like to touch upon the sociological base of the issue I am raising.
Emilie Durkheim says that individual human beings interact with one another in the traditional, more so in agrarian, communities with a sense of belonging which he terms as mechanical bonding. However, in the modern society that bonding has crumbled as the individuals leave their greater family, relatives and the community in search of their livelihood, and once away and by themselves, they feel (but may not consciously realise or articulate) that they have lost that sense of belonging. Under compulsion and out of desire, these individuals seek affinity with people they can work with, communicate with and through whom they can be known in a wider circle. Durkheim calls this interaction organic bonding. This bonding is stronger and more functional when it acts as a tool to help the individuals grow in the profession, self-actualise and be recognized in a broader circle. Helping teachers in this way is not only helping them to have a network but also help them to realise their full potentials and forget the sense of loss of earlier bonding. The growing awareness of teachers to start and sustain teacher networks / associations is a phenomenon that follows the above theory. Individual teachers who would not otherwise have met are leading international projects on teacher support. This phenomenon has been more prominent among teachers of English as foreign language as they not only leave their original home and neighbourhood but also teach something that is foreign. So, I feel that we need to establish the issue formally and academically in the mainstream discussion.
Mike Solly rightly put at the end of his presentation in an ELTeCS meeting in Srilanka:
Tell me and I will… Forget
Show me and I will. …Remember
Involve me and I will…Understand
Network me and I will. …Grow (and help others to grow)
Looking forward to more inputs from you all
Laxman
rama_kharel
Dear Laxman,
I'm not a teacher prfessionally,but you don't have to be teacher to agree with your valid point.This applies in any profession. To me Networking with professionals is like joining a university without paying tution fees.
And among all the profession teaching is the most influeinced proffesion in the society
you can't have doctors,engeneers or any professionals without teachers.You made me very proud friend,
keep it up,
Regards
Ramakant
vivek4dha
krishna_kalyan_dixit
Dear All,
Reading the thoughts shared by Laxman and Amol Padwad on the nexus between professional development and network forced me to say something on this issue. Besides, Penny’s invitation to say something about this. I agree to what Laxman and Amol have said about networking and the consequential professional development . I think that the issue of ‘network’ is vast and lot of research has already been done on it under various names.
1) The idea of ‘network’ has become a sort of buzz word in teacher education lexicon. It is attracting a lot of attention from the whole teacher education system. But the whole phenomenon of education is marvelously messy and this idea of network is not an exception to it. It means different things to different people. For me, it is our ETCs first, which are, as Amol has said, informal, small and totally voluntary self-help groups of teachers working towards professional development. I look at ‘network’ in terms of teachers as individuals coming together with some purpose and working constantly to toward that purpose. This phenomenon has been called ‘professional learning communities’ (PLCs) in literature (see for e.g. Hargreaves: 2000 and Stoll and Louis: 2007). Besides, it is also studied under the rubric of ‘communities of practice’ (for e.g. Little: 2002). I think ELTeCS works on this line where any teacher can just pop in and voice her voice.
2) The second way of looking ‘network’ is in terms of creating school-based teacher communication mechanism. This is, for me, the American phenomenon as most of the research on this line is from America (see for e.g. Lieberman and Grolnick: 1997 and McCotter: 2001). Sometimes here, the ‘network’ is described as ‘collaborative learning groups’. This type of ‘network’ is focused on school-development through teacher development. So the attention here is on school-improvement with specific concern about implementation and management of change in education.
3) I strongly feel that the networks like IATEFL are more about transmitting information and expertise and do demand some expertise on the part of members for active participation. They have their own language and discourse about everything in ELT. This type of ‘network’ usually in the form of ‘teacher associations’ differ from first two in terms of number of members (too many), issues and concerns (more generalized and theoretical), and organization and management (quite formal). I think they work more as a certifying mechanism of professional development rather than initiate the development of individual/ isolated teachers working across the globe.
In the next piece I wish to write about the role of ‘network’ (like the ETCs) on individual teachers.
Look forward to more thoughts on ‘Network’.
Krishna
Works (just) referred:
Hargreaves, A. (2000) Four ages of professionalism and professional learning. Teachers and Teaching: History and Practice, 6/2.
Lieberman, A. and M. Grolnick (1997) Networks, reform, and the professional development of teachers. In A. Hargreaves (ed.) Rethinking Educational Change with Heart and Mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Little, J. W. (2002) Locating learning in teachers’ communities of practice: Opening up problems of analysis in records of everyday work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18/8.
McCotter, S. S. (2001) Collaborative groups as professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17/6.
Stoll, L. and K. S. Louis (2007) Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, depths and dilemmas. Maidenhead: Open University Press.