The label professional is used in ways today more than its socio-historical heritage suggests. Its origin was a person employed in a profession. Such employment is seen as “one’s work” (a commitment), not a routine “job.”

A profession is a social category of employment where the compensation is directly by those served. It relies on specialized knowledge and skill and corresponding educational training needed for “good results” promised by the profession. A profession also controls access of newcomers and disciplines members for unprofessional conduct (e.g., malpractice in medicine, disbarment in law).

The meaning and heritage of a profession is in the Greek concept “praxis” which is knowledge employed in the service of others and the benefits promised and expected. Aristotle wrote his Nichomachean Ethics clarifying the difference between knowledge that is (a) theoretical, (b) for making actions, and (c) for doing actions. Theoretical knowledge is speculative and needs testing for its truth value, as in science–but also for validating “I believe” claims as the basis for action. Making knowledge results in physical products that demonstrate the goodness or rightness of the action (well-hung door; that is, Aristotle’s techne or technical knowledge).

Doing knowledge serves praxis undertaken on behalf of those who need various kinds and degrees of “good results” (good health, good legal service). Such right results vary according to a person (e.g. a patient) or group (e.g. parishioners, fifth-graders) cannot easily be qualified in advance as “good” or “right.” Even after the fact, the goodness of results may be doubted or challenged, sometimes even in malpractice or small claims court by a dissatisfied client. Today, then, professional praxis i(e.g., medical practice) is not simply “practice” in the usual sense of ‘trial and error’ needed for proficiency. Instead, it demonstrates a competency and ethical standard recognized as qualified to serve the public’s needs and interests.

When an occupational field becomes professionalized, it defines professionals whose praxis is based on training in a body of knowledge or skill and whose means (not always just professional) follow the ethical standards of the profession. Educational training supplies knowledge that can provide objective, successful service to others. New professionals have followed a “calling of care” regardless of personal monetary gain. Professionals, therefore, are rewarded by interactions with and service to others; for example, clergy who thrive on their praxis despite meager pay. A student teacher at a N-K practicuum said to me, “I can’t believe they pay you to do this; it is so much fun!” Thus, the ideal “calling” precedes ‘realities’ typically suffered by professionals that always threaten to snuff out initial idealism.

With social change, this simplicity has given way to compromises, not all necessary or reasonable For instance, professions have been socially institutionalized — that is, have been transformed into and by social institutions. Schools are an example. Formerly, teachers were private tutors or one-room school teachers with little consequential supervision. This changed with the impact of universal schooling. Similarly, hospitals have grown according to population, usually on a cost-for-service basis. The institutions of both schools and hospitals are the major employers of teachers and nurses.

According to social scientists, both have lost their integrity as professionals to the institutions that separately control and pay for their services. Semi-professional praxis is thus affected (or afflicted?) by the institution that thoroughly guides most decisions and modes of praxis to its conditions and criteria. Hospital routines administered by nurses can thus trump the needs of patients. School lunch may be served at unreasonable times determined by the schedule. Teachers are evaluated by supervisors or principals not, as in university faculty, by peers (“principal” derives from “principal teacher”). Standardized exams don’t always test or test accurately what was taught. Tests assume, to begin with, the cogency of the curriculum (what needs to be learned) that more and more is dictated by educational publishers and not as envisaged by teacher professionals.

Fitting into the flow of the school routine becomes an abiding goal of many teachers. And for these reasons, sociologists of education have qualified their work as having been “de-professionalized” by the institution of schooling. Where professionals were once identifiable in terms of their profession, now unions and nurse associations serve the collective role that used to be guided by the profession at large. There is more than a little evidence that teacher unions, for example, protect teachers from administrators, parents, and taxpayers more than they directly affect the quality of teaching or professionalism of teachers. In fact, teachers who openly criticize another teacher on professional grounds will face union rebuke.

Despite social changes having influenced semi-professionals, they are certified by state agencies that supposedly guarantee competency. Their pay scale is governed by the negotiations of teacher unions and nursing associations, and what little oversight is possible tends towards ensuring the smooth running of the institution by administrators. They do not need to be detectives to notice on fine Spring days, rising unprofessional use of Friday and Monday sick-leave days that have been the focus of negotiation between the union and Board of Education. The value of “professional days” depends on how the time away from students is used: if those days are filled with dull or unrealistic workshops, etc., teachers find themselves in the students’ seats; Although early departure is not something students can choose, some faculty will who think their time is wasted.

The insertion of substitute teachers into already schooling does not help the mixture of forces conspiring to make schools at best uneven in their promised results. The lack of appeal of nursing to modern youth puts a burden on those already in the field. Even more problems exist when “professional” is used loosely for certain trades. Then, the criteria of Aristotelian techne apply, and empirical results qualify the technical goodness or rightness, say, of carpentry and hairdressing. Gaining or losing clients is the feedback for such professionals, unlike what is possible for those ‘clients’ served by teachers and nurses. They have no say.

There is plenty to discuss about the experiences of professionals in the modern world. Because the topic is so controversial, those who consider themselves professionals and their field a profession need to constantly rethink the grounds and criteria of their “calling to care” and the ethical bases of their professionalism. Instead of blaming the institution for the de-professionalizing of their field, consider how to overcome those impediments and challenges. Instead of complaining, consider how you can be more professional given the conditions that face you.

Thomas A. Regelski, a former Brocton resident and State University of New York at Fredonia professor, can be reached at tom.regelski@helsinki.fi