Professionalism

Professionalism consists of several qualities: honesty, punctuality, flexibility, a willingness to work with others, problem solving skills, a positive attitude, patience, open communication, being aware of one's personality, morals, and such, and the list could continue on and on. As an educator, we are bound by a code of professional ethics, but I think more importantly are the ethics that we as each individual bring into the educational field. After all, it doesn't matter if a piece of paper declares teachers to have a certain disposition, because it is the individual person who will join the field and decide how to interpret the code and what it means to him/her. In addition, by being aware of our own habits, morals, ethics, and such, we can learn that not everyone we meet nor the families we work with will all agree with our own personal values and we need to be open to them even if our opinions differ. Overall, there are many qualities that can consider one a professional in his/her field and despite a universal code, there will always be those who vary from the 'norm', but that doesn't mean they are any more or less a professional. I suppose what I am trying to say is that being a professional is a human definition and therefore isn't easily defined nor described as the spectrum covers a wide area.