Images of Teachers at Conferences: Developing teaching as a profession, demographics and life long learning

Abstract

Ironically, in an era of life long learning a number of countries face a teacher shortage, recruiting and retaining staff in a profession that is not seen as particularly attractive. At times teachers have been the recipients of the ‘discourses of derision’ and ‘teacher bashing’ by governments and the media, however the argument presented here is that discourse of educators themselves has done little to help teachers’ status. Expanding upon the notion that higher education postgraduate programs can position teachers as ‘novice academics’ this multimedia article goes further to suggest that a significant portion of educational discourse unwittingly situates teachers simply as novices. To support this, video data from two key note presentations is examined followed by an examination of a teacher-educator text on professional development. It suggests caution and a re-examination of the discourses of education and professional development is needed in order to develop teaching as a profession.