Finding my professional identity: one day in Nepal

 “TPI (Teacher Professional Identity) provides an additional frame to support strategic planning at a systems level. This includes enhancing the effectiveness of policy development and implementation, increased professional growth and satisfaction of teachers’ work that support retention of teachers within the profession.” (Suarez & McGrath, 2022)

I became professionally interested in the professional identity of teachers through my work around teacher retention, and hence the preceding reference, but the seeds of understanding my professional identity were sown in 2006 in a small village in Nepal. That year I led a school trekking party to the Everest region of the Himalaya. Part of our mission was to visit schools in the region, talk to teachers and to make donations to help with their work. On our trekking route was the village of Thame, a day’s trek from the trekking mecca of Namche Bazaar and on an old trade route to Tibet.

Arriving in the village we found our way to the school and we were greeted by all of the children and staff. With an altitude of over 12000m I reckon this must be one of the highest schools on Earth! Whilst our students played football (breathlessly) with the children of Thame, we toured the classrooms and chatted with staff. At the time the school was very basic (it may be very different today), rough benches and tables, home-made resources on the walls, and very basic provisions. I sat in a room talking to a couple of teachers, and it was then that I had my road-to-Damascus experience. I realised that though I was far from my physical home, that I felt completely at home with the school staff, my global colleagues. We shared professional values, we worked to improve the lives of children through education. At that moment, their first language, their ethnicity and nationality, their own education, mattered little, they were my professional family. I felt more at home in that school classroom with these teachers than I did with most of my neighbours back home.

I’ve thought a lot about that experience over the last 18 years and how it has changed my outlook. It was my awakening to my professional identity and also a significant factor in developing my own concept of global citizenship. In my head I now am only “British” by virtue of the passport I possess, I care little for the concept of Britishness, especially in these days where there is such a divergence in my values from those of my fellow citizens. My country of birth, my first language and skin colour, are things I cannot change, but they alone can never define me. My values and beliefs transcend an accident of birth, and they idea of constructing an identity around such chance attributes becomes increasingly ridiculous the more I think about it. I am glad I live in a democracy, and in a country that created the NHS, but this is not enough to define me. I am a teacher, a physicist, a husband, parent and grandparent, a musician and a stamp collector! Oh, and by the way I happen to have by born in Nuneaton.

 

The approach to Thame

 

The Himalayan valley in which Thame is located

Our school party in Thame

Wall displays in the school

Professional identity matters, especially to teachers. I fear that the way in which the education system has evolved over the last couple of decades has diluted teacher professionalism, attacked the values of teachers, and suppressed a real sense of identity. But it matters; it matters so that teachers go into work each day and do their best for the students in front of them, it matters so that when times get tough teachers recognise who they are and stick with it, and it matters because we need to remind ourselves occasionally of why we do this.

The construction of a professional identity relies on many factors, including personal values and beliefs, experiences of education and training, experiences of the profession, the culture and climate in the workplace, and so on. However for me, I was unaware of my emerging professional identity and the contribution of these factors, even though they were clearly impacting my professional life, and I suppose it was that day in Nepal that opened my eyes to who I was and why I continued to devote my professional life to education in one form or another.

 

Suarez, V. and J. McGrath (2022), "Teacher professional identity: How to develop and support it in times of change", OECD Education Working Papers, No. 267, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b19f5af7-en.