Susan Lynn

The Winding Path: Understanding the Career Cycle of Teachers

T eachers are a primary component for educational excellence, and the need to attract and retain highly capable individuals to the teaching profession is clear (Holmes Group 1986, Carnegie Forum 1986, National Governors Association 1986). In response to that need, numerous reform efforts, including programs, plans, and recommendations, have emerged in an attempt to professionalize teaching and make the career more rewarding. Many of those reforms are predicated on the assumption that teachers develop through different career stages and undergo continual change. Within the adult development and career development literature are theories and studies that acknowledge that teachers have different attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors at various points during their career. Early models viewed teachers’ careers as progressing through three or four sequential stages (Burden 1982; Newman, Burden, and Applegate 1980). Later models have attempted to incorporate the career stages and principles of adult growth and development (Fessler 1985, Leithwood 1990, Super 1994). The literature suggests that the characteristics of teachers that appear to change are their concerns, instructional behaviors, understanding of children, awareness and understanding of the school and teaching environment, and perceptions of themselves, their work, and their professions. The literature describes the variability that occurs in the areas of personal awareness, cognitive development, interpersonal development, and theoretical knowledge. Implied is the idea that as teachers’ characteristics change, their needs with regard to professional activities, relationships, and interests will change accordingly. The teacher career cycle model incorporates both the literature on career stages and the literature on adult growth and development (Fessler 1992) (see figure 1). The model is an attempt to describe the teacher career cycle within the context of a dynamic and flexible social system. The career cycle itself progresses through stages, not in a lock-step, linear fashion, but in a dynamic manner reflecting responses to personal and organizational environmental factors. Among the variables from the personal environment that affect the career cycle are family support structures, positive critical incidents, life crises, individual dispositions, and avocational outlets. The organizational environment of schools and school systems compose a second major category of influence on the career cycle; among the influential variables are school regulations, management style of administrators and supervisors, atmosphere of public trust in the community, expectations of the community for its educational system, activities of professional organizations and associations, and union atmosphere. The model proposes that a supportive, nurturing environment can assist a teacher in the pursuit of a positive career progression. Alternatively, an environmental atmosphere that includes negative pressures and conflicts can have an adverse effect on a teacher’s career path. Fessler’s (1992) career cycle model, based on self-reported The Winding Path

Through the years: a longitudinal study of physical education teachers from a research-based preparation program.

Abstract This study investigated factors that enhanced and constrained the career development of six teachers, who had graduated from the same university teacher education program, in their induction years (Woods & Earls, 1995) and again later in their career cycles. Three participants were physical education teachers (PETs), and three were former physical education teachers (FPETs). Fesslers (1985) Teacher Career Stage Model provided the theoretical framework. Data sources were: interviews with teachers and their teacher educators and direct observations of lessons. Results indicated that the PETs continued to have skill development as their primary teaching objective. The teachers maintained many of their teaching skills, and shifted between the career cycles of “competency building” and “enthusiastic and growing.” All three FPETs left their physical education positions during the career frustration stage and at the time of publication were in the career exit stage.

The Case for Daily Physical Education

JOPERD • Volume 78 No. 5 • May/June 2007 Y outh obesity, the most prevalent childhood and adolescent nutritional disease, often leads to adult-type health problems (Dietz, 1998; Nader et al., 2006). In 2001, Surgeon General David Satcher issued a national call to action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). President Bush later signed into law the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, which encourages action to address the childhood obesity epidemic and mandates the adoption of local wellness policies (House Education & Workforce Committee, 2004). According to the 2006 Shape of the Nation Report, a recent joint study conducted by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and the American Heart Association (AHA), only 56 percent of high school students participate in physical education, and the percentage of schools requiring physical education in each grade progressively drops by grade level—from 50 percent in fi rst through fi fth grades to 5 percent in grade 12. Further, students attending daily physical education classes declined from 42 percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 2003, and only 8 percent of elementary schools, 6.4 percent of middle/junior high schools, and 5.8 percent of high schools provide daily physical education under recommended guidelines.