ABSTRACT
This chapter and Chapter 8 will explore the wider world of the expert teacher, the world beyond the individual’s classroom. There are some creative tensions between being an expert teacher and what might be called an expert colleague; these are discussed below. There is also an issue of defi nition at times in determining what is the difference between working with others to develop and support them and what is developmental for the teacher ‘doing the developing’. Working with others and enabling them is unquestionably developmental for the enabler. For the purposes of these two chapters, we will distinguish between how expert teachers can work with others (and be developed by such work) and how important it is that expert teachers seek out and benefi t from professional development, usually offered by others. However, even then, some activities such as action research (see Chapter 8) seem very much an individual project of development. The best teachers are aware, however, that they can be drawn into supporting others to such an extent that their own development may be slowed down or even arrested; they know that a balance is important to achieve and is not, in itself, somehow a selfi sh act.
