Professionalism; over and over again I hear this word being used within the field of higher education. Professionalism is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as, “the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well.” Too often are people student affairs educators asked to be professional only to feel hindered when they walk through the front doors. Why you might ask; because professionalism is not equitable for all.
Let me back track and talk about our best friend and ruler of our lives; Facebook. Now Facebook has probably been the fastest growing social media platform since the end of the mighty era of MySpace. Facebook has allowed us as human beings to travel across cities, states, …show more content…
The group has been really helpful in discussions about best practices for developing strategies to best serve our students. However, the group has been very damaging to many educators due to the mask that we sometimes hide behind called professionalism. On July 5, 2016 Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man, was killed outside of a food mart for selling CDs. For me as a black man in these United States I again began to feel both numb and afraid. This was the same wave of tragedy that overtook me when Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and so many others were killed within recent years. However, I thought about the varying ways these situations would impact our students who would be returning in a month’s time. So I went on Facebook to be in community with other educators and see what strategies were being shared. To my surprise I was hit with that same hindering word; professionalism.
To some student affairs educators it was unprofessional to have discussions about race and reality within the group. This completely baffled me. It puzzled me that the word professionalism was used as a way to silence the voices of others instead of validating lived experiences of educators and students. Many of us became educators because someone poured into us or we saw that there was a hole that needed to be filled. For most educators the work that we do is wrapped up in our passion to help develop conscious
Let me back track and talk about our best friend and ruler of our lives; Facebook. Now Facebook has probably been the fastest growing social media platform since the end of the mighty era of MySpace. Facebook has allowed us as human beings to travel across cities, states, …show more content…
The group has been really helpful in discussions about best practices for developing strategies to best serve our students. However, the group has been very damaging to many educators due to the mask that we sometimes hide behind called professionalism. On July 5, 2016 Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man, was killed outside of a food mart for selling CDs. For me as a black man in these United States I again began to feel both numb and afraid. This was the same wave of tragedy that overtook me when Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and so many others were killed within recent years. However, I thought about the varying ways these situations would impact our students who would be returning in a month’s time. So I went on Facebook to be in community with other educators and see what strategies were being shared. To my surprise I was hit with that same hindering word; professionalism.
To some student affairs educators it was unprofessional to have discussions about race and reality within the group. This completely baffled me. It puzzled me that the word professionalism was used as a way to silence the voices of others instead of validating lived experiences of educators and students. Many of us became educators because someone poured into us or we saw that there was a hole that needed to be filled. For most educators the work that we do is wrapped up in our passion to help develop conscious