Is CPD missing a vital link?

Is CPD missing a vital link?

Guest Blog by Maria Dennis

www.diversedifference.com

Behavioural style has been shown to be a key factor in staff relationships. 75% of stress at work is due to management style and problems with the boss is the second highest reason for leaving a job. So it follows that there must be potential stress for pupils. The demands on teachers in the realm of relating are intense and far greater than in many conventional management positions, in that there is a far greater dependency on the relationship between student and teacher in terms of the student’s success. Teachers have to inspire, inform, educate, motivate, support and counsel young people, through a process of learning and development, but they also have to manage the overall process of education, for the class as a whole, and in the wider context of the administration and infrastructure in which this occurs.

There is so much about learning and development that remains ineffective, despite the advance in learning theory and it could be that ‘relationship’ is at the heart of the problem. The causal effect between teacher and student is well proven, but what about CPD – the development of the teacher themselves. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating that conventional approaches to CPD fail to deliver the intended outcomes. If the relationship between teacher and learner is causal, then why not, if one is developing through self-reflection, the relationship with one’s self. I liken development to moulding and sculpting, but you need to have a thorough knowledge of the material you are working with if you want to achieve a masterpiece. And this is what is overlooked when it comes to CPD and why the best endeavours fail. The development part of it is the working of the clay, the all important foundation knowledge of the material, entirely neglected. By investing in the building of foundation knowledge of ‘self’, the time and effort put into development pays a wholly different dividend.

This can be achieved through the use of sophisticated behavioural profiling, not psychometric tools that position people into types and categories, but profiling that delivers as accurate as possible reflection of the unique individual. And this is pivotal, because every one of us has a unique set of styles of behaviour, inner motivations and perceptions of our world and this needs to be understood at this level if we want to advance from a real understanding of who we are. Any development of oneself, and indeed of others, has to start with a detailed understanding of self, our relationship with ourself and from here, with each other. A relationship is a dynamic between one and another, each one different and unique. Becoming skilled in this terrain has the potential to make a dramatic impact.

Through exploring and developing the relationship with self, most of the issues that people normally attribute to relating to others become illuminated in a totally new light and find that the solutions to them are actually change within themselves. This approach, whether for personal or professional development, enables us to find the true source of behaviour and does not mislead us into an endless cycle of addressing symptoms while leaving the cause elusive and so the behaviour ultimately unchanged.