The Who

"Who are you? I really wanna know!"

                                                                   -as sung by Roger Daltery of The Who

It's not what, it's who.
Teaching is no different than many other professions:
 We spend huge efforts to refine our work by creating and implementing programs, methods, theories, policies, and other instruments of good intentions.
 We work on our appearance, be it is our dress code, body language, advertising, or office decor.
We discuss and debate issues, best practices, and our markets.
We devote hours to training and study.
There are those in teaching and many other professions that excel, that perform far above the norm, as well as others that fall short of competence.
The professionals that perform at a high level have a "who" factor that sets them above their peers. They do the "what" with everyone else; it is who they are, their core beliefs, motivations, and values that   consistently separate them from the pack. It is who they are that causes them to do the "what" so well.
I feel a lot of the criticism of education, and, dangerously, a lot of the change implemented in education recently, is generated from a focus on the "what". There is traditionally a misdiagnoses of a profession's ills based on perceived weaknesses in things.
An institutional gut check about who we are as a community (students, teachers, administrators,  politicians, etc.), might result in a better idea of  who we need working with the "what" of the classroom.

¿Quienes somos? -
P. Suave