Teacher Identity and Integrity: balancing aspirations with reality

Do you feel that you need to reclaim your vocational passion?  Do you sometimes feel frustrated that you are not able to be the teacher you dreamed of being?

Everyone experiences this cognitive dissonance – a term used to describe the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes – to some degree, most often without being able to recognize it, let alone confront it.

This programme will give you an opportunity to investigate this phenomenon and to explore the causes of your discomfort and its impact on your sense of success and satisfaction, on both personal and professional levels.

This programme will give you an opportunity to identify and describe the causes of conflict you experience as a teacher, accept what is in your power to change as well as what you only have limited influence over, and re-prioritise our goals and aspirations for yourself and your students.

It will also help you appreciate the connections between your identity and integrity as a teacher on your students’ learning, explore the influence of your sense of wellbeing and expression of identity on your unique teaching style, and celebrate it from a strengths-based perspective.

Basic Principles

• We teach who we are (Parker J. Palmer)
• The Tangled Triangle – Students, Subjects and Teachers
• Causes of Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger)
• The meaning of Identity and Integrity as they relate to teaching

Strategies, Tools and Techniques

• Valuing who YOU are as a person and as a teacher
• Revisiting and re-evaluating why you teach
• Knowing that good teachers cannot extract their identity from their teaching practice
• Identifying and developing our strengths as the key to our success and satisfaction
• Establishing a community approach through respecting space; physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual
• Being solutions-focused

Planning for continuous development

• Goal setting – KASABs – going from general and aspirational to specific and skills based
• Identifying action steps that are realistic, achievable and supportive of who YOU are.

This is a structured workshop based on an dynamic and interactive approach, and supported and guided largely by the book by Palmer J. Parker “The Courage to teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life”.

The present edition is being offered as a 12 hour on-site workshop delivered in 2 consecutive days (09:00 to16:30) combining synchronous and asynchronous coursework.

Part 1 – Foundations and introductions

Upon registration, participants will be sent an e-book version of the book “The Courage to teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life”, by Palmer J. Parker.

Participants are asked to watch an introductory video, complete a background questionnaire and describe their current experience of the challenges faced, as teachers, in balancing aspirations with reality.

Part 2 – Live sessions (online or in-person)

In each live session, elements and excerpts of Palmer J. Parkers’ book will be unpacked and explored.  A theory-to-practice approach will be followed to help each participant identify how the theories and ideas presented can be applied to their own experiences, both personally and professionally. By taking a strengths-based position, we will consider how we can recognise our strengths as teachers and reconnect with them as the strong and deeply personal foundation on which our teaching practice can be celebrated and prioritised, in our planning, teaching and professional reflection.

In the distance learning format, extended Learning Tasks will be shared for school-based application, practice and reflection between each live session.

Part 3 – Follow up

Follow up online session (in both formats) approximately two weeks after the end of Part 2. Participants will be encouraged to share their post-workshop site-based coaching application.

Part 4 – Post-workshop clinic (optional)

An opportunity for further exploration, supervised and coached by the workshop facilitator. Please refer to our website for details.

Natalie Croome is an international educator, professional learning designer and facilitator who helps teams of educators design their professional learning journeys through a data-driven, evidence-based, solution-focused and learner-centred approach.

Her favourite areas include transdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning, ethics, teacher identity and integrity, cognitive coaching, collaborative inquiry and wellbeing.

Natalie has over 26 years of experience as a teacher and teacher trainer in Australia, Germany, Tanzania, the Czech Republic and Qatar (having worked for three years in Doha as a full time Teacher Trainer for the EDI – Education Development Initiative).

She is a certified Cognitive Coach (Level 2).

On site workshops will be held in Lisbon or Cascais (Greater Lisbon Area), Portugal.
The exact location, as well as accommodation options, will be announced in due course.

Tba

650 € per participant, inclusive of materials in soft copy and certificate.

Dates for the 2022-2023 school year will be announced shortly.