While we spend our waking hours at schools surrounded by people, as educators we may sometimes feel isolated and lonely in different ways. We may work with exemplary professionals, but we may not always have colleagues who share our personal educational philosophies, specific interests within our profession, or even our faith in Christ. When we attend professional development conferences, this may be an opportunity to connect with other educators outside of our immediate school community regarding philosophy, pedagogy, and faith. Throughout my career, I have found these experiences at conferences to be life-giving and an important opportunity to widen my perspective and professional network.
While conferences can be excellent opportunities for professional growth, they are not always a realistic option for all educators due to limited funding, limited time, or required preparation. If attending conferences is not an option, how can educators embed professional development into their everyday lives?
Early in my career, I decided to weave professional development into my daily routine. I taught at an amazing Christian school with like-minded educators who shared my educational philosophies and faith background. However, as a new teacher, I felt like I constantly needed to know more about the profession. As the novice teacher, my knowledge base paled in comparison to that of my veteran colleagues. While I was able to attend one professional conference annually, I knew I needed frequent opportunities to grow as an educator. To do this, I turned to my computer. I was shocked to find so many informal professional learning communities online. Three resources that have allowed me to grow professionally on a regular basis include Facebook, Instagram, and podcasts. These platforms have been my ongoing sources of professional development. I use these tools to stay current, informed, and connected in the field.
On Facebook, I joined several groups that bustle each day with collaboration, community, and conversation. As an English teacher, I joined groups that focused on content and pedagogical innovations for language arts instruction. I became exposed to new texts and exploratory teaching methods.
I was shocked to find that educators also share free resources in these groups. This year, when the national news story broke that undocumented children were separated from their parents, an educator in one of the Facebook groups put together an entire literary unit on immigration in response to this national crisis. She posted the link to a Google folder in the Facebook group. Many educators downloaded her materials and implemented the curriculum into their classrooms. Others offered supplemental materials to support the curriculum she created. It was a beautiful collaboration and powerful curricular response to an issue that impacted many schools and classrooms across the country.
New educators often post questions in the Facebook groups. Beginning educators commonly post questions about how to handle a situation with a student or how they should respond to a parent email. They will ask questions about how to support a specific struggling student or how to approach administration about various topics. The veteran educators diligently respond and offer sound advice. The collective wisdom in these groups provides rich community and daily opportunities to grow as an educator.
The Facebook educator groups commonly have conversations on the topic of equity. In Titus, Paul instructs, “In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned” (2:7–8). To show integrity as a Christian educator, it is important to focus on equity in the classroom. If we want our students to become loving individuals who show concern for the poor, the brokenhearted, and the downtrodden, we must first care for the marginalized and forgotten in our classrooms, and we must illuminate these issues in our curriculum. Equity is not something that can be mastered, and therefore ongoing professional development for issues of equity is necessary. Facebook groups provide support for teachers in pursuit of this ideal. Teachers will post characteristics of a particular student in hopes of finding a text that will spark a love of reading. For example, a teacher will post a comment such as, “I am looking for a fiction book for a fifth-grade student. She is on a third-grade reading level, is an English language learner, she loves cats, and her favorite food is pizza.” Much to my surprise, other educators always chime in with individualized text ideas for these unique requests. It often brings me to tears to see educators from around the world coming together to problem solve and promote literacy and engagement for all students. Educators also recommend curriculum that can weave issues of equity, social justice, and multiculturalism into the fabric of every day teaching.
While I use Facebook groups to collaborate with other educators, I use Instagram to follow other educators. On Instagram, people interact less in terms of connecting through dialogue, but there are significant opportunities for learning. I follow accounts of special education teachers, educators who teach in rural and urban communities, and teachers who are of different races. I follow teachers who embed art into their curriculum, and I follow teachers who teach all of their curriculum through a social justice lens. In following different teachers, I can learn more about education at large in our country, and I can learn about different curricula, pedagogy, and perspectives of education.
I also use Instagram for cultural professional development. I regularly ask my teacher-education students, “Whose voices are you listening to?” One way to find out whose voices you listen to is to assess who you follow on social media. For this reason, I use Instagram to follow different cultural leaders. I follow members of the Black Lives Matter movement, Indigenous peoples, Latinx community members, and women’s rights leaders. In choosing to fill my feed with different voices, my perspective and positionality continue to shift and alter in ways that benefit me as an educator and as a whole person. I am reminded of my own unfinishedness each time I scroll through my social media (see Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, 50). This leads to rich dialogue with my students about different perspectives and voices (see Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 89).
In addition to using Instagram as a tool to learn more about best practices in education and culture, I also use Instagram as a tool to grow in my faith. Many of the Christian authors I read keep active Instagram accounts. They regularly post Scripture and comment on politics, national news, and global issues in connection to Christian faith. As Christian educators, our job is to bring spiritual insights into educational settings (Epstein). By following exemplary Christian leaders, I am able to grow in my own faith on a daily basis. This informs and transforms my teaching and my vocation as an educator.
Podcasts
Paul writes in Romans 12:13, “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Because our classrooms are homes of learning, it is our responsibility as Christian educators to practice hospitality in our classrooms. I often think about this in terms of what it means to be a hospitable teacher. In the same way we strive to make guests comfortable in our homes, we must strive to make students comfortable in our classrooms. As we accommodate food preferences, allergies, and dining times for those we host in our homes, we should accommodate for each of our students as well. This means we need ongoing professional development to learn how we can practice hospitality in our classrooms. As we learn new recipes for our guests, we can learn new instructional strategies and curricular tools to be hospitable to the diverse needs of all students. One tool that can support hospitality in education is the use of podcasts. On my commute, I listen to podcasts to learn about different areas of education. I regularly listen to The
Cult of Pedagogy to learn about a wide variety of pedagogical practices. Host Jennifer Gonzalez regularly interviews educators from all over the country about different issues in education. Topics range from oral history to note-taking to personhood in the classroom. Gonzalez masterfully presents different perspectives of an issue and includes diverse voices. This podcast offers regular, and free, professional development that can happen effortlessly during a commute.
Professional Development Scroll (PDS)
While professional conferences are great opportunities to grow and connect, there are ways to engage with other educators regularly from the comfort of your home or classroom. I set aside time each day for what I call a “PDS”—a professional development scroll through these different social media platforms. If you do not want to mix professional resources in with your personal social media, creating different accounts for professional development is one way to keep the professional and the personal separate. I try to set aside about thirty minutes per day to learn something new through these different avenues. This allows me to embody the practice of lifelong learning, which is a value I continually press on my students. Additionally, I feel as though I can contribute curricular ideas and resource recommendations to my colleagues as appropriate and desired. By subscribing to these digital communities and tools for professional development, my faith in our profession is continually affirmed. I am reminded on a daily basis that there are great educators working hard to provide innovative instruction and equitable learning for all students.
While engaging in digital professional development will most likely take place during personal time and is likely an uncompensated activity, I am reminded of Paul’s words in Colossians: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Col. 3:23). As we strive to be the most knowledgeable, equitable, and hospitable educators we can be, we can be comforted by Paul’s reminder that the work we do in this hard and holy profession is ultimately for our God.
Works Cited
The Cult of Pedagogy. Podcast, www .cultofpedagogy.com/pod.
Epstein, Daniel. “Parker Palmer.” Portraits in Faith, April, 9 2015, portraitsinfaith.org/parker-palmer.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
—. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin, 2017.
Elizabeth Yomantas is an assistant professor of teaching and the director of clinical practice at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. Before beginning her work in higher education, she was a middle school English teacher. Elizabeth’s research interests include: teacher education, indigenous Fijian education, and culturally responsive curricula.