Professional Development or Professional Awakening?

During my three decades in education, I have attended and facilitated numerous professional development sessions. After my first decade as a teacher, I pursued three formal postgraduate diplomas and degrees to deepen and broaden my learning. Yet over time, one realises that the most powerful professional learning does not always happen in formal programmes. It happens in classrooms, in corridors, in conversations with colleagues, during feedback sessions with experienced practitioners, and in moments of deep self-introspection and honest reflection.

Early in my career, I approached professional development the way many educators do: as an opportunity to acquire new strategies, expand my knowledge, and add tools to my teaching toolkit. At that stage, professional development was largely about doing more and knowing more.

Over Time, However, Something Shifted

The most transformative learning does not come from acquiring new techniques or attending prestigious workshops. It comes from inner shifts from becoming more reflective, self-aware, and curious about my own practice.

My love for Geography helped me see the world itself as a classroom. A particularly powerful learning experience came during an Advanced Diploma in Professional Practice and Pedagogy from the Srishti School of Art and Design. That programme transformed how I connected learning to the world around me. Everything I could see, touch, read, and experience became a potential learning opportunity. My Mastery Thesis on Place as Text fundamentally reshaped my thoughts about teaching and learning.

During a student outbound programme, river study experiments in a mountain stream were conducted using materials readily available in the surroundings. On another occasion, the children’s book The Pebble in My Pocket helped students understand the formation of the Earth. These experiences were not simply about applying a particular teaching strategy; they reflected a shift in how learning and the educator’s role within it were understood. This is where authentic professional growth often begins. Professional development is not only about improving what we teach; it is also about developing deeper self-awareness.

Self-Awareness & Observation

Early in my career, a high school student once asked me if I was having a difficult week. He explained further that he had noticed the darker colours I had been wearing and how quiet I seemed in class. I was surprised to realise how closely students observe their teachers, noticing not only what we teach, but how we show up.

This incident reminded me that professional growth also involves reflecting on how we present ourselves, how we relate to others, how we connect with students and colleagues, and how we communicate and collaborate. It requires adapting to change, navigating new leadership contexts, and responding thoughtfully to challenges. At its core, professional growth requires emotional and social intelligence. Professional development is not just restricted to focus areas on how we teach and what we teach. We need a mastery based approach where we also equip ourselves with relationship mastery, organisational mastery and self-mastery.

Meaningful growth begins when educators move from externally directed learning to internally driven inquiry.

Of Shifting Mind-sets

At our institution, a learning ecosystem has been designed as against a calendar of workshops. Professional learning is embedded in everyday practice through classroom experimentation, reflective conversations after observations, collaborative inquiry, and leadership projects. We follow the 70-20-10 learning model, strongly believing that 10% of the learning comes from formal workshops and learning, 20 % of the learning happens through reflection, peer and mentor feedback and the rest 70% of the learning happens in the classroom, while teaching, planning, assessing and understanding the needs of the individual learners and designing future learning based on the inputs.

When teachers begin asking questions such as “What is really happening in my classroom?” or “What kind of educator do I want to become?” Professional development stops being an obligation and begins to feel like a personal journey of discovery, a deliberate choice to become a better educator, a better leader, and ultimately, a better human being.

There comes a point in every educator’s journey when professional growth stops being about credentials and begins to feel like a calling.

For me, that shift happened when I realised that teaching is not simply about delivering curriculum; it is about shaping human possibility. At this stage, learning is no longer pursued for external recognition. It becomes deeply personal. Educators begin to read more widely, reflect more honestly, and seek conversations that challenge their thinking. Curiosity gradually replaces compliance.

Experience, Responsibility & Curiosity

Experienced educators play an important role in shaping cultures of continuous learning within schools. This means modelling vulnerability, sharing our own learning journeys, mentoring younger teachers with patience, and creating spaces where reflection is valued as much as results.

One of the greatest challenges in a long career is sustaining curiosity. After decades in education, it is easy to rely on established routines and accumulated expertise. Yet the most inspiring educators remain learners at heart. They continue to ask questions, experiment with new approaches, and stay connected to the evolving needs of their students.

Curiosity is sustained not by novelty but by purpose. When we remain connected to the impact of our work on young people, the desire to keep learning naturally follows.

Journey of Self-Discovery

If professional development were truly reimagined, it would look less like a series of workshops and more like a journey of self-discovery one that includes exploration, reflection, research, guided practice, mentoring, and coaching.

Educators would have the opportunity to explore not only what they teach, but also who they are as educators, their beliefs about learning, their responses to challenges, their capacity for reflection, and their aspirations for impact.

In the end, the most powerful professional development is not something we attend.

It is something we become