Description
Education professionals help others improve themselves and increase their knowledge by teaching them academic and social skills, using learning tools or organizing educational activities. They also give out information and/or advice and keep track of their students’ progress.
Education professionals usually specialize in a specific area, acquiring extensive knowledge and becoming experts in this designated field. While most of them work with children and young adults, some of them may also work with other age groups, such as seniors.
In most cases, education professionals are also responsible for overseeing students’ mental and physical health and their learning and behavioural difficulties, referring them to other specialized services when required.
Tasks Overview
Education professionals are usually responsible for the following:
- Providing education, information, counselling, and/or consultations to students by preparing and presenting educational material in compliance with an approved curriculum.
- Identifying students’ needs and goals and ensuring they work toward achieving them.
- Acting as a bridge between the students and their parents, disclosing their impressions on the students’ work and behaviour, discussing goals and ways to achieve them.
- Ensuring the students’ personal, intellectual, and social development.
- Tracking and reporting students’ progress and development, as well as their health, safety, and well-being.
- Seeking feedback so as to adjust the teaching curriculum, methods, or tools.
All professionals working in the Education field usually share the same characteristics, which include, but are not limited to:
- Having a genuine love of people and desire to see them succeed.
- Having exceptional interpersonal and communication skills, including negotiation, conflict resolution, relationship building, and listening skills.
- Being able to work within a multicultural environment, showing consideration and respect to a diverse range of people of all backgrounds and abilities.
- Having strong assessment skills, great intuition, and mature judgment, while being great at decision-making, and strategical/analytical thinking.
- Using creativity and imagination to develop new insights and to apply innovative solutions to problems.
- Being organized and detail-oriented, able to strategically structure and customize content.
- Being able to collect data, define problems, establish general facts, and generate valid conclusions.
- Being great at multitasking and prioritizing. Easily and efficiently managing a high volume, diverse workload, as well as changes in tasks with short notice.
- Having an optimistic, energetic, “can-do attitude” and being great at motivating themselves and others.
- Having a strong sense of initiative, flexibility, perseverance, and commitment.
- Being able to work independently, as well as to work cohesively as a team.
- Having a thorough knowledge and understanding of current teaching, evaluation, and assessment practices, legislations, and techniques/tools.
Most Education positions require a bachelor’s or master’s degree in Education, with an additional certification in a designated field of expertise. All Teachers must have obtained a Provincial or Territorial Teaching Certificate in order to become members of a provincial or territorial association or federation.
Some other Education positions (e.g. Librarians ) might require more specific diplomas, certifications, and licences.
All Education professionals must also have extensive academic training and professional preparation, especially in their designated field of expertise.