Paper Example on Teacher Self-Awareness: Examining Strengths, Weaknesses & More

Introduction

Self-awareness refers to the self-examination of a teacher (Lee, 2018). In this context, self-awareness is a conscious knowledge of a teacher with the ability to recognize oneself, and capacity for introspection as an individual is different and separate from people existing within an environment. Similarly, teachers who possess self-aware have unobstructed views about themselves. In that regard, a teacher becomes aware of his strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, emotions, and personalities. Ideally, self-awareness has significant impacts on personal teacher development, which can be observed through skills development, among others.

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Personal development is the chain of events that an individual performs intending to improve knowledge and self-identity (Demetriou et al., 2011). The personal development process involves the talents and potential of nurturing human capital, such as enhancing quality life by creating job opportunities. Indeed, personal development is driven by self-awareness since the higher the self-awareness level of a person, the higher the work performance. Since personal development emanates from self-awareness, the paper shall cover mental, social, and physical development.

Teaching as a profession always entails helping the students to acquire knowledge and requires a human connection between teachers and learners. Teaching is a complex task that teachers can learn to enhance. Teaching involves communication, affirmation, and reassurance of words. Teaching draws various qualities from the teachers, such as understanding the student's ability, understanding, communication empathy, and listening actively (Sadri, 2012). Therefore, training teachers is not the central objective of effective education. Self-awareness is vital for teachers to understand their personality features, emotional triggers, and psychological strength that may influence their relationship with colleagues and learners. Self-awareness enables teachers to articulate their philosophies and experience of life, ideals, and core beliefs that relate to their set objective within a learning environment.

At the workplace, a teacher that has self-awareness gain more knowledge about gender issues, religion, class, race, and family origin of the learners and shapes their abilities and attitudes to address these issues with the learners. Self-awareness and personal development is essential for the teacher to understand their strengths and skills towards risks and uncertainty and their desire for reassurance (Sadri, 2012). Self-awareness and personal development enable teachers to understand their feelings such as intimacy, vulnerability, frustration, anger, and love. Also, teachers can understand their relationship with some learners by reflecting their attitude towards performance, justice, and benevolence.

Social Development

According to Maslow (1995), self-awareness is a vital dimension for teachers in understanding management as a form of practice. Maslow argues that the self-awareness mechanism in education management relies on the interpretation and satisfaction of human desires. Further, Maslow argues that people refrain from acquiring new ideas based on uncomfortable and uncertain feelings they may acquire (Heylighen, 1992). However, Goleman argues that the inadequacy of self-awareness may lead to damage to an individual's career and relationships. For people to overcome panic or any feeling of fear within a society, then disclosure is the only option (Richards et al., 2010). For instance, if a teacher discusses his feelings with others, he can amicably solve the ambiguity of the problem. At work, if a teacher exchanges a self-analysis toolkit, other teachers can be aware of their weaknesses and strengths based on the feedback they get from others.

Emotional development

Silvia argues that self-awareness makes one's emotions to be salient, leading to greater emotional intensity (Silvia, 2002). If a person has a higher self-awareness, such a person is likely to be sad. Emotional self-awareness enables teachers to understand their emotions and how they affect their work performance. The ability to sense how people feel consider a teacher helps in aligning one's self-image with higher reality (Richards et al., 2010). Emotional awareness enables a person to develop an accurate sense of weaknesses and strength that leads to the creation of realistic confidence. Thus, emotional self-awareness helps teachers to have a sense of purpose and develop clarity on their values, to allow teachers to be more decisive when they create a course of action. Arguably, having emotional self-awareness can help a leader to be authentic and candid about speaking with vigor about learning dreams.

Emotional intelligence enables teachers to deal with an objective-based decision making process without being led with emotions. Teachers need to utilize emotions as a way to solve problems amicably, including different managerial procedures (Bratton et al., 2011). Personal development is a critical factor in teaching leadership skills. In this context, emotional intelligence entails personal development, which dwells on the foundation of the action of an individual.

Physical Development

Physical development entails the parts of the body that experience pain and pleasure. Arguably, learners in positive emotional and social learning environments are exposed to fewer risks in terms of their behaviors. Also, those kinds of students are more likely to register positive academic performances and general well-being. From the concepts of self-awareness and personal development, teachers can link personal development activities to classroom practices to avoid cases of involving learners in intellectual activities without providing for them enough time to reflect and apply their knowledge (Von Haenisch, 2011). Through these concepts, teachers can enhance professionalism by creating reflective activities where learners can discuss ways in which their attitudes and values comply with ideals of teacher's profession such as responsibility, altruism, compassion, respect, and integrity.

Teachers who are self-aware about their situation are essential in the education sector, restoring humanism and better options for nurturing learners. Those teachers are needed in the decision making process and setting of goals. Self-awareness enables the teachers to handle the patients based on perception, experiences, and personal emotions. Thus, teachers must recognize their values to handle learners carefully. By doing so, a teacher can choose the alternative that is deemed important. For an effective learning environment to be established, teachers should develop the habit of interacting effectively without not only learners but also their colleagues.

According to Maslow, people tend to seek psychological desires such as control, power, self-actualization, achievement, belongingness, affection, and esteem (Heylighen, 1992). These needs affect interpersonal relationships and influence people's behaviors (Arasli et al.,2019). By understanding these needs, teachers can ensure that their self-interest does not jeopardize their management process within a given institution.

Conclusion

In conclusion, self-awareness entails a person's skills to observe oneself. In this context, a person can observe himself based on new ideas and a particular set standard of judgment. However, the best observation of one-self depends on the feedback they obtain from others. Indeed, personal development emanates from self-awareness as a person cannot seek to acquire knowledge and self-identity if he is not aware of himself. Thus, self-awareness and personal development are crucial for teachers to understand their abilities and skills towards risks and uncertainty and their desire for reassurance. Self-awareness and personal development enable teachers to understand their feelings. Therefore, self-awareness and personal development is a vital concept that should be fostered while training teachers.

References

Arasli, H., Arici, H. E., & Cakmakoglu Arici, N. (2019). Workplace favouritism, psychological contract violation and turnover intention: Moderating roles of authentic leadership and job insecurity climate. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 2397002219839896.

Bratton, V. K., Dodd, N. G., & Brown, F. W. (2011). The impact of emotional intelligence on accuracy of self-awareness and leadership performance. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 32(2), 127-149.

Demetriou, A., & Kazi, S. (2013). Unity and modularity in the mind and self: Studies on the relationships between self-awareness, personality, and intellectual development from childhood to adolescence. Routledge.

Heylighen, F. (1992). A cognitivesystemic reconstruction of Maslow's theory of selfactualization. Behavioral science, 37(1), 39-58.

Lee, J. (2018). Pascal's philosophy as anti-philosophy - a contemporaneity of Pascal's Selfawareness -. Korean Journal of Philosophy, 136, 27-51. doi:10.18694/kjp.2018.08.136.27

Richards, K., Campenni, C., & Muse-Burke, J. (2010). Self-care and well-being in mental health professionals: The mediating effects of self-awareness and mindfulness. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 32(3), 247-264.

Sadri, G. (2012). Emotional intelligence and leadership development. Public Personnel Management, 41(3), 535-548.

Silvia, P. J. (2002). Self-awareness and the regulation of emotional intensity. Self and Identity, 1(1), 3-10.

Von Haenisch, C. (2011). How did compulsory personal therapy during counselling training influence personal and professional development?. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 11(2), 148-155.