I Don't Want More Professional Development

by Shelly Blake-Plock

We don't need more "professional" development. We need social development. Or at least we need to recognize it and recognize that the ultimate outcomes we often desire from the best of professional development are actually an outcome of social development. We need a development of human capacity, not an adherence to the rules of our established profession. We need to build our relationships for the purpose of furthering our humanity, not furthering our careers.

And we know this instinctually. We know that Rosetta Stone can teach a foreign language as well if not better than a foreign language teacher, no matter how much "professional development" a teacher has; and yet through real relationships and social competence, that foreign language teacher can foster a love of language that trumps the didactic prowess of the program.

We know that the best thinkers will end up skipping over much of what we put in front of them to pursue their own interests despite whatever "professional development" we have; and we can either nail 'em for failing to read whatever arbitrary 19th century novel we put in front of them or we can celebrate their independence and the bloom of autodidactism that we have often recognized in ourselves -- not because an expert told us it was there, but because we've had our eyes open for a long time... that's part of the reason we are teachers to begin with, after all.

We know that our ability to follow the procedure of a learning strategy will never trump our ability to look into the eyes of a student and say, "trust me".

We are teachers and we are in the business of relationships, motivation, and the facilitation of dreams.

And so we develop ourselves. On blogs. On Twitter. Throughout the PLN. We have used the opportunity of the tools at our disposal to engage in an older and vastly more satisfying form of professional development than the mandatory in-service. We've developed a relationship with development. We are engaging with our growth and our communal experience in an open, social, and mutually beneficial way.

We are all teachers teaching teachers. We are all responsible for each other's development. We are responsible for our profession, yes; but more importantly, we are responsible for our kids' futures. And the future isn't built on "a way" of doing something. It's built on finding a way -- and the emphasis is on the finding.

And for all of our theories, all of our curriculum design, all of our talk of standards and guidelines -- nothing trumps the fact that the world is not a well-oiled machine.

There is no such thing as perfect grammar. There is no such thing as a right answer.

There are only relationships between things.

The world is not professional. The world -- at least our communal experience of it and of one another -- is social. So let's keep up this conversation. Let's help one another out. And let's keep our eye on the meandering path of the ever changing social development of that thing we call education and those we call educators.