ABSTRACT
Bringing Out the Best in Teachers In a seminal work, Flexner (1915) suggested six major characteristics that
should be present for an occupation to be called a profession:
…professions involve essentially intellectual operations with large individual responsibility; they derive their raw material from science and learning; this material they work up to a practical and definite end; they possess and educationally communicable technique; they tend to self-organization; they are becoming increasingly altruistic in motivation. (p. 904)
Teachers are professionals. Teachers grow, evolve, and emerge as professionals through the long-term and day-to-day work they do, and that is why job-embedded learning opportunities need to be the focal point of all professional development efforts. Teachers need support from school leaders and from their peers throughout these opportunities.
