TEACHING AS A PROFESSION
An address delivered at the First Conference for Educational Workers Union,
Hong Kong, April 15, 1982.
Cho-Yee To
I am delighted to see members of different
educational organizations gather here to
exchange views and information on important
topics in education and perhaps also to form
plans of action. Our presence here shows our
serious concern as educators about our
profession; it also signifies cooperation between
local teachers and their counterparts elsewhere
in the world. This kind of international
interaction is essential to the advancement of
any professional body.
I. Is Teaching a Profession?
We have a common interest. We want to
clarify our role as teachers, that is, our role
in the operation, improvement, and development
of education. We are proud of being "educational
workers," an identity suggested by the title of
this Conference. Indeed, ''educational worker"
is a fitting term. Not every form of activity
is work, even if it brings remuneration to the
person engaged in it. It is work only when it
produces something of value to others. The
business of teachers is to help students to acheive
higher standards of knowledge, ability, skills,
and moral character. If teachers do their work
well, then their work is of great value to others,
not simply in a particular time, but also in
the future.
Teachers are more than workers. They
are also members of a profession. Their
occupation renders definite and essential services
to society. As a profession, however, teaching
has had a long and difficult history. Its social
and cultural functions have never been critically
challenged, but nevertheless the public has not
adequately supported teaching. Compared with
other learned professions, such as medicine,
law, engineering, architecture, and business,
teaching ranks rather low. Some teachers are
dissatisfied with, and even depressed about
their professional standing. They feel that
the work load is too heavy, and the recognition
and appreciation are too limited. They think
that they do not have sufficient opportunities
to advance in their careers and that they have
no power to control the content and form of
their work. They resent prohibition against
their direct involvement in policy making in
educational affairs. Time and again, they ask:
Is teaching a profession? Or is it merely a sub-
profession?
To discuss the status of teaching, we
must understand the nature and functions of
education, and the promises and limitations
of teaching as a career. Then we can proceed
to deliberate about how teaching may be
transformed into a strong and powerful
profession.
II. The Promises of Teaching
By its very nature, teaching possesses two
very appealing traits. First, it deals with the
young, with those whose minds and characters
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are forming. It is a privilege to be entrusted
with the task of facilitating the growth and
development of the younger generation. The
teacher shares the parents' responsibilities
and joy of direct involvement in promoting
the healthy and balanced mental and moral
life of children. Indeed, teaching is pre-eminent
among the callings in its opportunities for
cultural and moral services.
Second, teaching provides opportunities
for intellectual development. It brings those
who pursue it into intimate contact with books,
experiments, and ideas. It stimulates the desire
for increased knowledge and for wider
intellectual contacts. Actually, no teacher can
be really successful in performing his duties
unless he is intellectually curious. Since
literature, science, and the arts are taught in
schools, the teacher's continued advancement
in some or all of these fields is desirable. Thus,
in teaching, intellectual development is not a
sideline. It is something which fits directly
into the demands of the work.
The material rewards that teaching brings
are not the chief reasons for going into it. It
promises no financial prizes equal to those
obtainable in business, law, engineering, or
medicine, but neither are there the risks. The
remuneration of teaching is relatively modest
but reasonably sure and steadily increasing. If
vacation periods are included as part of the
material reward, then teaching ranks high among
professions. To many, this aspect of the
profession balances all the material drawbacks.
III. The Need for Commitment to the
Profession
If teachers do not enjoy their work and
have doubts about their careers, they should
reexamine their attitudes and intentions and,
one hopes, they will renew their commitments
to education. By so doing, they will convince
themselves once again that teaching is not
simply an ordinary job; it is the profession
that they willingly choose to pursue. Teaching
is how they establish their identity and manifest
their values.
But commitments bear no fruit until
they are substantiated by action. Once they
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have affirmed their commitments, teachers
must devote their time and energies to their
professional activities. They should ask them-
selves, for instance, to what extent are they
involved in the new course that have been
introudced? In what way have they affected
the shifts in subject matter, and the change in
methods of instruction that have occurred?
Do they attend professional meetings and help
formulate professional policies? What attemps
have they made to give direction to educational
and social change?
All these questions suggest that the
functions and responsibilities of teachers are
not confined to the classroom. Teachers should
actively join in curricular development,
instructional design, theoretical inquiry, and
technical planning, as well as policy making.
They should have certain organized ways in
which they can participate in the formation
of the controlling aims, methods, and materials
of the school system of which they are a part.
Therefore, teachers' organizations have a very
important role to play in the advancement of
the teaching profession.
IV. Activities That Teacher Organizations
Should Actively Pursue
In the past, teachers' associations have
been mainly concerned with membership drives
and bargaining for emoluments for their
members. But in recent years, they have begun
to review their traditional functions critically.
Some of them do provide professional services
to their members. There is a lot more to do.
Clearer and broader objectives of the profession
need to be established. A mechanism for the
self-evaluation and self-discipline of the
profession needs to be created. A code of
professional ethics for teachers needs to be
developed.
There are other important activities
essential to the professionalization of teachers,
such as practitioners' participation in the control
of professional matters, promotion of relevant
research, and publication of professional and
scientific journals. These activities must also
be planned.

V. The Importance of Public Support
So far, we have been discussing how
teachers and their organizations should and
could upgrade their professional functions and
make greater contributions to society. We have
not talked about how society in turn should
support the teaching profession. Dedicated
teachers with clear objectives can accomplish
a lot. Their initiative and effort can bring about
substantial educational and cultural changes.
But teachers cannot accomplish as much as
they should unless the importance of their
non-classroom responsibilities is fully recognized
by society. If teachers have too many subject to
teach, they will not have adequate time and
energy to achieve professional growth and
extend their professional activities. Also, their
interaction with the young will be on a
mechanical rather than on a human level. If
teachers are thought to be unqualified or
unprepared to assume greater responsibility
Cho-yee To Teaching As A Profession
for professional matters, they will not be able
to develop their potential. Thus, society will
suffer from a permanent loss, that is, the absence
of a fully developed education profession to
serve it.
The Hong Kong community has
traditionally valued the education of its
children very highly. Here, the prospect that
the public will support the advancement of
teaching as a profession is good, so long as it
is persuaded that a strong teaching profession
and a good education are positively related.
With committed teachers, efficient organizations,
and a sympathetic public, the teaching profession
will soon transform itself into a leading
profession, and will bear this responsibility
with confidence and pride.
Dr. Cho-Yee To is Professor and Director of
the School of Education, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong.
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