ABSTRACT
Judy Arin Krupp frequently used this question to stimulate people on her workshops to think about personal development and growth1. At one level there is an ageing process which cannot be halted, as each one of us gets chronologically more gifted every year, and different organs of the body begin to wear down. However, another aspect of our development allows us to remain youthful, to retain energy and enthusiasm for life, to be aware and responsive to the world in which we live. This is a key area of staff development programmes and is an essential ingredient in maintaining and developing the culture of a school. Teachers are constantly faced with new challenges in their professional development. Some of these challenges are externally generated, from changes in society, government policy on education and school policy development. Other challenges are more personal-integrating changing personal needs and relationships with the world of work. The sense of life teachers bring to these issues depends to a large extent on the assumptions and attitudes they have to personal and professional development. In Chapter 3 we examined different levels of participation in a school and saw how the quality of that participation influenced the culture of the school. The present chapter complements Chapter 3. Here we focus on the images teachers and schools have of personal and professional development, and how subsequent practices may impact on teacher motivation and school culture. Understanding these images gives insights into why different levels of participation exist and why certain initiatives are resisted and fail, and why others are successful. This understanding also helps form strategies for staff development programmes which take account of individual teacher needs. The chapter examines assumptions in three areas of teacher development:
(a) the appropriate content of staff development programmes; (b) teacher career and development; and (c) school approaches to development programmes.
