The Study Of Teacher Professional Autonomy

The teacher's professional autonomy refers to teacher's rights in teaching based on his professional qualities. It is a right for teachers to carry out the teaching task expected by students, a right to freely communicate and cooperate with others and make free choices of profession. it is also a right for teachers to equally get along and have talks with others. what is more It is a right that can improve the communication and cooperation among teachers and promote the teacher's professional development and study of students, but not a right that allows teachers to enjoy full independence without any interference. The teacher's professional autonomy is the important standard to measure the degree of teacher's professionalization, if teachers are lack of professional autonomy, there will not be professionalization of teacher's occupation for teachers, let alone complete the holly educational mission. Unfortunately, people lack the deeply understanding of the function and essence of teacher's professional autonomy. Therefore, in our educating practice, there are numerous examples that in elementary and middle school teacher's professional autonomy is violated . in many cases, teachers have become spreaders , victims, and intervenees ,even outsiders of school management.Essentially teacher's professional autonomy ,a symbol of modern school democracy, is a senior requirement of teachers.It can assure the freedom of teaching and teacher's professional development, promote effective educating activities and development of academic curriculum ,and improve the teacher's status and life quality. it lies between collectively and individually professional right, a unity of right and responsibility, but not teacher's private right. The relationship between teacher's professional autonomy and studying right of students is win-win: namely, teacher can realize professional autonomy through promoting the studying right of students ; meanwhile teacher's professional autonomy requires the harmony with other objects. In elementary and junior educating practices, teacher's professional autonomy contains:the autonomy of teaching activities, the autonomy of development of curriculum, the right to manage and evaluate students, the right to make decisions and maintain professional quality.The study , based on a survey taking the elementary and junior teachers in Wenzhou who attended the continuing education during summer vacation in 2006 as samples, focuses on the current situation and influential elements of teacher's professional autonomy(TPA). Of 465 questionnaires handed out, 442 are valuable. With the help of SPSS 11.5, the writer, through analyzing the data, finds that:In the respect of sex, female teachers have higher expectation in TPA than male ones;In the respect of areas, teachers in remote areas have higher expectation in TPA;In the respect of ages, teachers with teaching experience less than 5 years have the highest expectation in TPA, so do the teachers majoring for 4 years;While in reality, female teachers get less chances to appreciate the right of making decisions; teachers majoring for 4 years feel inferior in professional quality maintainance; and teachers working less than 5 years get the lowest points in TPA in the questionnaire.Comparatively speaking, teachers with ranks in school administration enjoy higher right in TPA than ordinary ones; urban teachers rank lowest;In a word, there is a great gap between teacher's expectation and reality.In the influential elements in TPA, the study find that:In the elements influencing the teacher's right of making-decision, freedom of teaching autonomy and right to evaluate students, administrational interference and non-democracy play the major roles, whileas lacks of passion and training can mostly influence the teacher's right of curriculum development; too many heavy teaching tasks mainly affect the teacher's right to maintain professional quality.With the analysis of the survey, the writer reaches a basic conclusion: in order to promote teacher' professional autonomy, it requires that teachers themselves, school, government and the public get involved in the matter, and contribute respective duty and responsibility to diminish the gap in teacher's professional autonomy. Only if teachers highly appreciate the professional autonomy, teachers can independently, confidently and proudly pursue their teaching career and make contribution to the students and society.