After watching the Youtube videos, I began to reflect on what it really means to be a professional in education. In the first video, there were many similarities between teachers and doctors and how being professional is so important in both of these fields of work. In the video, the teachers involved also spoke about what it means to be an exceptional teacher. some of these were; team work, enthusiastic, dedicated and those who keep up their own professional development. i very much agree with all of these attributes and believe that these are vital in order to pursue a career in teaching.

In the video, there was a very inspirational woman who went above and beyond what was expected of her in her role of a teacher. She set up support groups for fellow teachers in order to develop each others’ skills and to inform one another of their own teaching methods in order to continue their own personal development. I think this is something that all teachers and student teachers should be involved in, in order to learn from one another and find the best methods that work for them and how to get the best of their teaching career.

In the second video, many teachers spoke about their thoughts on professionalism which was very interesting to hear different points of view. One of the teachers thought there is now more focus on professionalism of teachers in society as many are now benchmarked and are ‘ranked’ on how well their pupils are doing. This can provide some stress for teachers if they feel like they are constantly being compared to others, instead of working together with other colleagues.

Another teacher spoke about how important it is to be a role model, which is something I agree with entirely. Speaking and acting professionally in the classroom, and having attitudes that are appropriate will influence children in a positive way and will hopefully encourage children to model their behaviour around what you have been displaying.