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Journal Article Review

This article was written by Sonia Nieto, she is also a teacher and her husband and daughter are also in the profession. This article was written to give insight into why or how effective teachers stay effective and how they stay this way. The article expands on why do teachers teach, the roles that professional development plays in education, three actions that teachers should take and finally what teachers need to thrive in the classroom
The thriving teacher was described in this article as having previous experience, values, dispositions, determination to remain in the profession along with the hope of making a difference in students' lives. Teachers staying in the profession have a mind set of what it takes to be successful and productive in their classrooms. There are negatives that were mentioned that do in fact frustrate teachers such as; how to take a test, how to follow rubrics and templates, and district mandates on "new concepts". I have found that teachers sometimes find these tools frustrating instead of helpful in their profession. There have been proposals as far as what types and what content areas that professional development time is focused on. Nieto stated that, too often teachers find that their professional development is both inadequate and irrelevant. I tend to agree to this statement regarding the types of professional development that have been offered at our district, which has focused only on the core classes, and leaves out the exploratory classes. This leads the exploratory teachers typically outside the circle of content that is being presented.
Stephen Gordon, a veteran teacher in the Massachusetts area wrote about his frustration with the traditional professional development:
I am not looking for prescriptions for teachers. I am not looking for narrow "silver bullet" programs that script teacher behaviors using some quasi-scientific rationale.
As a profession are we expected to just listen and do, or is it that we...