A Study On "Important Others" In Junior Middle School Teachers' Professional Development

As organizers of educational activities, teachers always be the hot topic for us. Nowadays, with the rapidly developing of science and culture as well as the deepening of reform on new curriculum, teachers are endowed higher professional requirement by all sectors of society. Just as Ralph Linton said, people, occupies a position and plays a role, is provided a "script" that allocate different society roles to different members from society in every highly structured society interaction. In order to play the professional role provided by society successfully and undertake relative responsibilities and expectations, teachers need to maintain correct educational ideas and teaching methods at all time in their whole career development, and constantly improve their professional quality and ability for adapting the changing modern education environment. Additionally, they should pay attention to the effect from family, school, peer groups, professional groups, mass media and so on.This study based on previous research results and actual situation in teachers’ daily working life, conducts significant others in teachers’professional concept, professional knowledge, professional practice and professional personality during teachers’career development in school field. By concluding types, fields and ways of the effect from significant others, and the difference between different teachers, this study aims to help teachers to cognize and re-cognize their significant others at their side during daily teaching process, paying more attention to take full advantage of the limited resources around, and learning from each-other.The result showed that during middle school teachers’career development, headmasters effect mainly on teachers’professional concept, and master-teachers effect on teachers’professional knowledge, professional practice and professional personality. As grade leaders are rarely chosen as significant others, they have little effect on teachers’career development, but colleagues have great influence in teachers’professional knowledge and professional practice and students’effect only in teachers’professional personality. Additionally, parents have little effect in teachers’ career development, even negative sometimes, and other staff mainly include old teachers, backbone teachers and other outstanding teachers in school, they are models of teachers. By daily talking, classroom teaching, and cooperating, teachers and their significant others communicate with each other, and by observational learning or imitation learning they learn from each other. By the way, teachers with different teaching ages, grades and ranks, have significant differences on significant others issue.According to the questionnaire survey and teachers interview, at the end of this study there are the relative suggestions and countermeasures about significant others in middle school teachers’career development, with the purpose of reminding schools and educational departments can focus on the specific requirements from different stage middle school teachers, helping them enhancing communication with their significant others in daily teaching activities, providing various pertinent and practical learning approaches, promoting their abilities of acquiring subject knowledge and improving their teaching and management capabilities, and hoping teachers can actively find and communicate with their significant others in daily teaching activities, and approaching or achieving the career requirements of society gradually during their teaching and educating life.