Professional development and self-fulfillment of the teacher in the current environment

Бюллетень науки и практики / Bulletin of Science and Practice

UDC 371.13                                         

While speaking about teachers, their professional competences, work functions and actions, basic knowledge and skills, we turn to modern professional standards. These standards and teachers’ certifying procedures have been changed more than once in the last few years. It is not surprising because the Russian educational system is keeping up with the global experience and implementing the principles of the Bologna Process. The Russian Federation is striving for it to ensure the global competitiveness of its education and its entry into the top 10 countries in the world in terms of the quality of comprehensive education [4].

In this article, an attempt has been made to analyze educational changes as well as to find out how these changes are reflected in the teacher as a key participant of the present day pedagogical process who organizes and pursues education of a mature and independent personality. Based on the presented analysis, we are going to turn to the issues of professional development and professional self-fulfillment of the teacher.

Problem analysis

Over the past decades, our reality has changed a lot and it is rapidly evolving further. Current globalization in all spheres of life has given rise to great remodeling in education: the content of education is being updated, new teaching methods are being implemented, the tasks of increasing the students' motivation for learning and their involvement in the educational process are becoming increasingly important, the level of tolerance in the educational environment is increasing. Additionally, new educational solutions aimed at supporting and developing the abilities and talents of children and youth, their self-determination and professional orientation are required.

In 2018, the Ministry for Education of Russia launched a national project "Education" whose aim is to develop the entire educational system, namely: updating its content, creating the necessary modern infrastructure, training relevant professional personnel, their retraining and advanced training, as well as creating the most effective management mechanisms for this sphere. The stated terms are from 01/01/2019 to 12/31/2024. What does it mean? It includes the fact that half of the teaching staff in our country will be involved in professional development programmes in a fairly short time. In addition, 70% of teachers under the age of 35 will participate in various forms of student support in the first 3 years of work.

Thus, the teachers’ workload is increasing again, and the recent events associated with the need for all educational institutions to turn to distance learning has made further situation more complicated. Digitalization of education appeared not so long ago, but today the problem of appropriate teacher training has become aggravated. T. Grebenyuk (Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University) in her article notices an increase in the number of requirements for the teacher. Twenty years ago a diagnostic function of professional activity appeared, followed by a research function, and such qualities as creativity and innovativeness were valued in the teacher. Today, digital literacy, digital technologies awareness, using devices in educational process are expected from a modern teacher. This is an objective reality [1, с. 20].

Among other things, teachers have to confirm their qualification level every few years, to prove the efficiency of their teaching, to be selected on a competitive basis, etc. The monitoring carried out by the experts of public movement “All-Russia People’s Front” showed that the introduction of measures designed to implement the national educational project actually has not improved the position of teachers, but in some cases changed it for the worse: the teaching effectiveness criteria have become elusive, the salary has depressed but the pressure on teachers has increased. It became clear that every fifth teacher is ready to leave school because of low salaries and huge workload.

So why does the teacher need to constantly demonstrate their expertise? The reasons for that are known: the result of pedagogical work is controversial and differed. After all, its object is a complex multilateral personality whose development is interwoven into a complex network of social relations and stipulated not by educational environment alone. However, the problems of the younger generation are primarily associated with education and upbringing and become the teachers' responsibility.

Teaching profession is undoubtedly very difficult and underrated. The teacher is difficult to be controlled, the level of their skill is hard to analyze, and the results of their activity are too ambiguous. That is why such high requirements are imposed on the teacher, the standards are constantly changing and new competences appear.

How can the teacher cope with such a responsibility? How can the teacher work in everchanging conditions? Is it possible to improve under external pressure? Is the teacher really interested in that?

E. Mychko and O. Kaigorodova after studying the factors of the professional growth of teachers, concluded that the factors inhibiting professional growth in the ranks of interviewed teachers are emotional burnout and low level of motivation for professional achievements. Among the factors that contribute to professional growth, survey participants named the need for selffulfilment and reflection over their professional activities [3]. The results obtained confirm that subjective factors prevail while stimulating teachers to professional growth. This means that the main condition for motivating pedagogical activity are teachers themselves: their personal attitudes, ideals, values and aspirations.

Obviously, teachers do not choose their profession accidentally. From the very beginning of their teaching career they get inner satisfaction from it. They learn to understand and remember many things: knowledge systems, physical, social, mental, and many other laws and processes. All this makes the teacher better, more professional and confident, it also allows them to understand the importance and principles of teaching. This path of development is associated with the desire for perfection. We see perfection as the image that is sought. The aspiration for the pedagogical ideal is professional development of the teacher (self-education, self-development, self-improvement), which, in turn, is a condition for career opportunities (promotion, categories/ qualifications, etc.).

However, there are some contradictions in the matter of personal development (including professional). For example, a number of modern authors argue for self-development of a personality, for striving forward, for increasing competitiveness; others (Karen Horney, etc.) consider such behavior to be the source and cause of neurotic behavior [10].

It is also known that in some countries, teachers' professional development is compulsory, in others it is voluntary. So, when participation is compulsory, teachers can treat it formally, focusing more on fulfilling requirements than on taking advantage of professional growth [6, с. 228-229].

The problem of professional burnout and personal deformations of teachers is significant and closely related to professional crises and difficulties. It has already been considered in our early works [14]. What if teachers make mistakes, and their work does not show the best results? What if, like any other professional, the teacher fails (in educational activity and upbringing, in their colleagues’ eyes, in personal life, etc.). Does this mean that the teacher is not successful? And is it possible to cope with it?

Searching for answers

We try to find answers to all these questions by studying the theory of personal self-fulfilment with professional development being a part of it. Professional self-fulfilment of the teacher is, first of all, the teacher's fulfilment in the profession; secondly, it is an integral dynamic characteristic of the teacher, reflecting their personality in teaching procedures, broadcasting their content to other people and culture through creative and communicative processes (according to E. Gavrilova); thirdly, it is one of the aspects of personal self-fulfilmet of the teacher, which accompanies professional activity.

The idea of self-fulfilment of a person is not limited to the single idea of constant selfdevelopment and striving for a certain perfection. It also offers self-understanding, plunging into the depths of "Me'" and understanding who the person is and what he/she is striving for. It helps to understand the person's uniqueness and inner potential that they can and want to realize, whether it is professional, social, creative or other vector of personal development. Thus, the idea of selffulfilment of a person does not allow the need to strive for the pedagogical perfection.

There are no perfect teachers, there are no perfect people as well. But there are teachers-masters, teachers-creators and teachers-innovators. Their talents and potential are individual and unique. Striving not only for public, but also for one's own perfection and ideas is a condition for internal potential fulfilment concerning professional skills, perfection of professional competences and personal qualities.

Striving for self-fulilment is the way to overcome professional problems and burnout and achieve professional success. The process of the teacher’s professional self-filfilment is an internally guided process of improving any (or a number of) types of professional activity, which includes extended teaching and other scientific knowledge, formation and improvement of pedagogical skills and competences to improve learning and upbringing results. Speaking about the formation of skills, abilities and competences, we mean new professional qualities of the teacher, which are acquired in modern educational environment.

In the article written by I. Patronova "competences of the future" are described which can serve as tasks of continuing education and professional and personal development of the teacher The author compares the forecast of the developers of the teacher’s professional standard, analysts of the World Economic Forum, as well as a number of authors who proposed their idea of a cluster approach, and lists 6 main clusters covering about 80% of the " competences of the future»:

• ‒    Ability to interact and cooperate with other people (ability to write business letters, speak in public, desire to cooperate, emotional intelligence, empathy, customer focus, humanism, tactical skills, etc.);

• ‒    Thinking and problem solving (critical thinking, etc.);

• ‒    Quick learning skills and open mind (self-education skills, curiosity, openness to new experience). These competences are not presented in the professional standard.

• ‒    Innovation and creativity (courage, willingness to experiment and make mistakes). Attempts to involve the teacher in innovative and scientific research have to be comprehended and cultivated.

• ‒    Digital knowledge and skills (programming, knowledge of the basics of robotics, distance learning, etc.);

• ‒    Awareness and self-management skills (the ability to manage your attention, find meaning in work and in life, the ability to make plans, understand yourself) [5].

Due to the fact that these competences are not fully represented in modern professional standards (not only in Russia), we are convinced that their development can improve teacher's professional self-fulfilment, develop new professional skills and generally improve the quality of educational activities and status of the teaching profession. We also see the tasks of the teacher's professional self-fulfilment in the development of these competences, as well as in the development of the teacher's modern ideas about the world and its influence on the educational system.

Let us shape these competences with regard to the need of improving professional selffulfilment of the teacher both in theory and in practice:

٭ The teacher effectively interacts and collaborates with other people.

This competence has not been put randomly in the first place. It needs to be looked at very closely. Karl-Oswald Bauer, a German professor of Pedagogy, wrote that a new study on teaching professionalism revealed that the emphasis has shifted from teaching in a narrow sense to relationship management, indirect monitoring, communication and social organization. In the future, teaching is likely to include activities like education management, moderation, clarification of goals, improving communication, building stable relationships, social regulation system development, counseling, coaching and assessment [9, p. 54]. Furthermore, the author underlines the importance of communication among teaching staff. He notes that cooperation allows teachers to learn from each other in practical situations and this way become more professional [9, p. 55]. At the same time, one of the important qualities of the teacher is personal independence which means taking over responsibility and taking optimal, effective decisions.

Today, the personality of the teacher is considered from the standpoint of humanization and democratization of education — the teacher is tolerant, he/she respects other people’s thoughts and feelings, strives for creation, for the well-being of society and human life improvement. Emotional intelligence skills are essential; they are manifested in communication with students, colleagues, students’ parents, etc., as well as in developing the teacher's reflexive skills - the ability to evaluate themselves and the results of their work adequately, the ability to evaluate themselves "through the eyes" of other people, guess their behavior, understand their feelings and desires, the ability to cope with failures, to draw positive conclusions from current situations, find new effective solutions to problems, etc. Teachers need to be able to “communicate with themselves”, understand their own feelings and reasons for certain actions.

The ability to analyze your own feelings and the feelings of others can be developed both through independent practices and through psychological and pedagogical support and coaching.

٭ The teacher has effective thinking and problem solving skill

This competence is certainly very important and, perhaps, it refers to basic personal competences. However, its assessment and description is so sophisticated that we are unable to interpret the teacher's effective thinking unambiguously. The study of mental models of teachers has appeared in global Pedagogy recently. “The term mental models has emerged as a shorthand for capturing a central tenet of recent cognitive research, namely, that people interpret their environment through a set of “cognitive maps” that summarize ideas, concepts, processes or phenomena” in a coherent way” [12]. This study is of great interest as it can provide answers to such important questions of the teacher’s professional development as: Why does a teacher choose a certain method of teaching and upbringing? What are the reasons for their choice of a particular course of action and decision making? What influences the teacher's situational behavior? Why are some teachers creative and innovative but others not? Why is the teacher often unable to accept new information that is different from their routine perception?

Thus, the study of mental models is becoming more and more relevant and can also be applied to the theory of the teacher’s professional self-fulfilment. Accordingly, we can say that the success of the teacher's professional self-fulfilment is associated with their desire to create and to “go beyond the usual teaching framework” to make the learning process brighter and more effective.

In addition, the issue of the teacher’s thinking implies the problem of critical thinking which is often connected with reflective thinking. “Сritical reflection can also be thought of as the process of analysing, reconsidering and questioning experiences within a broad context of issues like ethical practices, learning theories and use of technologies (Boody, 2008). Riddell (2007) noted that examination of one’s assumptions is not a simple task and teachers must be able to ask themselves critical questions about their assumptions and actions… According to Choy and Oo (2007), the feelings and beliefs that teachers have towards themselves and others will play a part in how they teach” [13, c. 198].

٭ The teacher is quick to learn and open-minded

In our opinion, open mind is the key competence of the teacher's personality. Psychologists define open mind as a special property of a person to accept new experience. "The teacher of the future" should be open, first of all, to their students who are considered their new unique experience. The teacher's ability for self-education is also closely related to openness and willingness to learn new experiences. The teacher’s open mind is often accompanied by such personal qualities as:

• ‒    developed critical thinking;

• ‒    adequate value judgments;

• ‒    developed emotional intelligence;

• ‒    humanism and compliance with democratic principles;

• ‒    lack of psychological barriers (ability to cope with them);

• ‒    ability to admit their own mistakes;

• ‒    intellectual curiosity (acts as a narrower personal quality, i.e. "to be inquisitive" does not mean "to be open-minded " whereas " being open-minded "certainly means to "be inquisitive" among other attributes);

• ‒    striving for self-development and self-fulfilment.

It is essential to say that formation of an open-minded personality is impossible without reflexive thinking that is responsible for the adequacy of value judgments. Though the issue of pedagogical reflection has being studied for a long time and has entered into teaching practice, it is worth highlighting its key role not only in development of new competences but also in the whole process of professional development and self-fulfilment of the teacher.

٭The teacher is creative, able to implement and launch various innovations.

Creativity is a personal quality which encourages the teacher to carry out creative activities and research work as well as search for new forms and methods of teaching.

In its turn, creative activity is the highest form of human activity, which involves many mental processes and operations. While creating something, a person is able to make something new and reveal their inner potential. That is why we consider this type of the teacher's activity as an integral part of his/her professional self-fulfilment. It is creativity that opens up the true individuality and proficiency of the teacher.

Research work of the teacher has been examined thoroughly in our early studies. It preconditions improvement of professional self-fulfilment and represents a wide range of research knowledge and skills formed in the course of pedagogical research, and shaping some other qualities of the teacher, namely, professional intuition, predictive abilities, diagnostic skills, etc.

٭ The teacher has up-to-date digital knowledge and skills

This conception of the teacher is completely new and there are still no theoretical solutions in both Russian and world science concerning the formation of this competence. At the same time, “student teachers understand digital tools as key tools in academic life that greatly affects the quality of their education. This is particularly evident with regard to the possibilities for easier collaboration and contact between students and teachers, easier access to information and literature, and more variation in the use of learning materials” [11].

In 2014, the Norwegian Center for ICT in Education proposed the structure of professional digital competence of teachers, including:

• 1.    Generic digital competence which “cuts across subject disciplines and specifies the general knowledge and skills that teachers, teacher educators and student teachers alike should obtain in order to function as digital educators. This dimension is most likely identical, or very close to, the already existing descriptions of general digital competence”.

• 2.    Didactic digital competence which “captures the digital specifics in each subject that the individual teacher educator deems significant. It is in this dimension that the actual distinctive differences in the didactics between subjects would be described, for example, mathematics taught with ICT versus foreign language or pedagogy taught with ICT”.

• 3.    Professional oriented digital competence which “describes digital traits of the extended teaching profession, the question of what teachers need of digital literacy in other parts of the job, for example when they are planning subject lessons, sorting evaluations, recording marks and detention, communicating with parents and other groups, etc.” [11].

Similarly, in modern Russian educational system, ICT competence has three components:

Despite the fact that ICT competence structure has been described, it is still necessary to develop methods for general pedagogical and subject pedagogical digital skills formation in teachers of various disciplines. Thus, digital competence is another important element of the teacher's professional development that can become one of the vectors of pedagogical innovation and self-fulfilment.

٭ The teacher has awareness and self-management skills.

Karl Oswald Bauer believes that personal development in educational institutions should occur in the following areas:

• ‒    Time planning and work organization;

• ‒    Search for targets;

• ‒    Partner work and teamwork;

• ‒    Dialogue (interview);

• ‒    Dealing with stress and tension;

• ‒    Stress resilience;

• ‒    Planning your own professional development;

• ‒    Feedback and evaluation;

• ‒    Advice and control [9].

All these spheres are interrelated and overlapping. For instance, self-management is impossible without clear goal-setting [9, p. 77] and so on. The suggested list gives us the idea of how the teacher carries out their self-development and self-fulfilment. However, there are other approaches to understand and describe this process. They all, one way or another, reduce themselves to the following diagram (Figure).

The problem of stress resistance of the teacher in this process is of great interest for us. Carrying out many activities almost simultaneously, the teacher is frequently under stress. There is a need to prepare the teacher to deal with stress to prevent its negative effects, including professional burnout, personal deformations and leaving the job.

We find answers to many such questions in psychological research. Furthermore, we are convinced that proper activity planning will allow the teacher to avoid stressful situations. The teacher needs to prioritize using their own experience and acting in accordance with professional goals and requirements for educational results. The teacher’s responsible attitude to planning and forecasting their activities, the ability to select the necessary information and arrange pedagogical process properly, emotional stability, the ability to make correct situational decisions and adjust the plan without deviating from goals and objectives, adequate self-esteem, the ability to forgive their own mistakes and to correct them afterwards, in our opinion, are the main indicators of the level of professional awareness, self-organization, self-control and self-management of the teacher's personality.

Figure. The structure of the teacher's activity in professional development and self-fulfilment process

Conclusion

"Competences of the future" are stipulated by changing reality and global educational innovations as well as the need for the teacher to become even stronger in this challenging environment. Teachers need to develop themselves as experienced, self-sufficient, content with their own life, open, purposeful, responsible, creative, courageous personalities with a high level of selfcontrol and inner motivation. Such qualities of the teacher's personality are necessary for raising the same qualities among younger generation - as representatives of the future human society. We see an opportunity for improvement of the teacher’s personality in realizing their inner potential while acquiring "competences of the future" and in developing these and other competences in their students.

We have once again proved the relevance of the theory of the teacher’s professional selffulfilment in today’s Pedagogy since it describes not only the requirements and conditions of professional development but offers individual and motivational and performance-oriented approaches to improving the personality and work of the teacher. In addition, it sets the main goal of professional self-fulfilment which is the teacher’s self-expression, release of unique professional abilities and pedagogical potential through the formation of new "competences of the future", development of modern ideas about the world and improving personal qualities and abilities.

The teaching profession remains in demand despite a high degree of digitalization and availability of information to everyone. We still need and probably will need highly qualified teaching staff and direct contact with the teacher as the main and the most effective transmitter of world knowledge and experience.

At the same time, openness to new experience, formation of this experience, continuity and development of the entire education system through individual achievements in teaching practice, responsibility and awareness, high level self-control, developed intelligence and mastery of modern technologies – all these things allow the teacher to feel needed, successful and self-sufficient - and this, in turn, is the key to their health and well-being.