On the Importance of Professional Community

1996 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Chicago, Illinois

Background The teaching profession requires active and reflective participation in the dialogue of the professional community. Through such interactions as occur in collegial study groups, scholarly publications, and professional organizations, teachers remain current and effective in content, pedagogy, and methodology. We believe that teachers who engage in activities within their local and the broader professional communities maintain a vitality that not only keeps them in this field but also promotes the career of teaching to others. Many school officials, however, do not adequately support teachers in their efforts to participate fully in professional communities. We need to demonstrate through research the connections between such professional engagement and the recruitment, continued education, and retention of good teachers to represent the diversity that the field of education requires. Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English solicit research proposals, seek funding sources, and offer forums to document the role of the professional community in the continued education, recruitment, and retention of effective teachers of English language arts.