ELT in Brazil

There seems to be a consensus, at least within our BRAZ-TESOL community, of the importance of continuous professional development. Along with this well-spread perceived value and necessity comes a fear of missing out (FOMO) on opportunities. For most of us, our time and money aren’t unlimited and, as all limited resources, should be prioritized for maximum impact both on our teaching and the development of our careers.

This means that we must carefully select professional development initiatives that are the most likely to yield positive results, or return on investment (ROI) as the business world likes to call it. To avoid this feeling of missing out, I would like to suggest a prioritization framework I designed borrowing heavily from Epicurus, the Greek philosopher.

Epicurus, when talking about what one needs to live a happy life, states that a happy life is one of pleasure. This pleasure, according to him, comes from satisfying specific human desires. Specific is the keyword here. Not all human desires should be fulfilled in order to live a happy life, according to Epicurus. To decide which desires are worthy of fulfillment, Epicurus designed three categories of prioritization and privation.

Epicurus said that human desires could be categorized as natural and necessary, natural and unnecessary, and unnatural and unnecessary. For instance, eating, drinking, and sleeping are natural, for all humans have them, and necessary because without them we can’t survive. Going to a banquet and drinking a good wine are also natural desires, but clearly not necessary for human survival. Now, fame, luxury, and the new iPhone are neither natural nor necessary. According to Epicurus’ perspective, we should satiate natural and necessary desires, sometimes indulge in natural and unnecessary desires, but avoid the unnatural and unnecessary ones.

My suggestion is that we look at CPD initiatives through these lenses. We must then be clear on what is natural and unnatural for the classroom, necessary and unnecessary, and then play with the combinations, as in a Venn diagram. 

Let’s look at the first two categories: natural and unnatural. Saying that something is natural is close to saying that this something is essential, as in part of the essence, of something else. For instance, teachers and students are what make the essence of a lesson. Without students or teachers, there’s no lesson. Also, along with teachers and students, we can argue that everything that stems from the interaction between these two entities also makes up the essence of a classroom. In this sense, the teacher’s language proficiency, lesson planning, classroom management, teaching techniques, interaction patterns, and working on emergent language are some examples of skills and knowledge that are natural to the classroom. Everything else would, then, be unnatural.

Unnatural to the classroom is everything not within the teacher-student relationship. For example, AI, Kahoot, Jamboard, Canva, AR, and others.

The other two categories, necessary and unnecessary follow a similar path for this analysis. What is necessary for a lesson to happen? What are the things, people, interactions, skills, and knowledge that we can’t do without, meaning without these there is no lesson? Well, students, teachers, and everything related to their interactions are necessary. Unnecessary would be knowledge, skills, things, and people that are not needed for the lesson to take place but whose presence, principled presence, can enhance the lesson.

Here’s where we deviate from Epicurus’ categories a bit. I don’t think we can’t indulge in unnatural and unnecessary CPD initiatives. I’m sure these can bring color and excitement to our classes and our careers. However, I believe we ought to prioritize the ones that target natural and necessary skills and knowledge first, then natural and unnecessary ones, and only then indulge in unnatural and unnecessary skills and knowledge development. Allow me to illustrate.

If you are a teacher who is unsure of your language proficiency and teaching skills when it comes to planning skills-integrated lessons, for instance, I believe you should prioritize CPD initiatives which focus on these before going to a training session about how to make cute slides on Canva. It’s not about not going to the Canva training but rather focusing on skills and knowledge that are more likely to produce a more immediate and lasting impact on your teaching practice first.

Of course, if you have the time and money to attend all training sessions, courses, conferences, webinars, and MAs out there, you don’t need to prioritize. However, I don’t think there are many of us as privileged as that endeavor would require one to be. As the next BRAZ-TESOL’s international conference approaches, I would like to invite you, teacher, to engage in this self-reflection exercise to find out which skills and knowledge in each of the three categories you are lacking and encourage you to focus on what is truly relevant for your development as a teacher and as a professional. Happy studying.