Professional development among teachers: Why it matters?

Zenaida D. Calma

The end of every semester typically marks the towering piles of paper works for

teachers. Reports of grades, promotion, and attendance to be submitted to various

offices are being prepared. Teachers are often spending extra hours after their

regular schedule simply to complete the requirements. Amidst all of these flooding

workloads, principals would often organize meetings, seminars, and trainings, which

takes away precious time from teachers. Instead of doing all the paper works,

teachers have to spend several hours listening to invited speakers and doing some

learning tasks. In the end of the day, teachers would often ask, “Do all of these

trainings really matter?”

The simplest answer lies deeply within our devotion to the profession. Teachers

are vanguards of knowledge in the school. They create opportunities for learning for

their students. They design learning activities that engage students into exploring

the world and all its wonders. They stimulate the interests of learners by promoting

active thinking in school. They make learning relevant through contextualization and

localization. With the fast-growing knowledge base entailed by technology, it is

almost impossible for teachers to acquire all these skills and information. Thus,

constant and persistent retooling of teachers is not only necessary, but imperative.

More than ever, the demand for well-equipped teachers is at its peak because

of the changing landscape of our society. ASEAN integration, internationalization,

and shifting labor force are but few of the impetus for the educational reforms.

Teachers, being the most important implementors of the curriculum, need to be

sufficiently armed in handling these various reforms.

Indeed, it is expected that such attendance to professional development activities

espouses sacrifices. There are times where teachers may be assigned to go

to far places to attend seminars. In some cases, they are required to give up their

well-deserved weekends. Unfortunately, there are also times where they have to

trade their opportunities to spend time with their family simply to comply with the

training requirements of the school. But in the end of

retrospect on the question, “Does it all matter?”

for the sake of the future.

it all, one can always

Yes. All these trainings matter. At the end of the day, teachers’ sacrifices boil

down to their dedication to the profession – a pledge that they voluntarily shouldered