For several years now, there has been a strong clamor for empowerment in various sectors of the society; among which is teacher empowerment. Given this scenario, one of the basic questions that needs to be answered is: What kind of force does empowerment aim to bring forth?

Empowerment is a new way of walking together that encourages people to become more involved not only in decision making but more so in the implementation of said decisions that can affect their work. Thus, it provides people opportunity to come up with ideas, confident that they have the capability and the skills to put these ideas into practice.

In the academe, empowerment is a relational process that involves mutual respect and open lines of communication between the school head and the teachers; acknowledging the competencies and potentials that each one has to share.

In Bolin’s (1989) definition, teacher empowerment simply means providing teachers the opportunity to freely participate in setting school goals and policies as well as the freedom to exercise professional judgment about the curriculum of instruction to be utilized.

Clearly, empowerment goes beyond participation in decision making; more importantly, it also recognizes teachers as knowledgeable and trained professionals who possess authority over issues that concern their professional lives.

To achieve real empowerment, there is a need to shift from the traditional or reactivated way of managing the school where the leader is solely responsible for running the school and the teachers whojust rely from the instructions, to a nontraditional or proactive way.

To achieve this, three changes need to happen: in the mindset of those involved, in relationships and in the organizational structure.

It is my firm belief that the most fulfilling moments of my being a teacher is whenever my students recall what they have learned from my class that they can apply in their lives; and that they have never stopped learning even after they have left the four walls of the academe.

As educators, we must leap outside the box of the old concept of “we teach and students learn” for it is only in doing so that we embrace the idea that we, together with our students do not stop learning, even after they left the school.

As empowered teachers, we must recognize that the landscape of the teaching learning situation has changed and is continuously changing, keeping abreast of the changing times.

In this age of information, technology plays a crucial role in the change on the way we relate to reality and how we learn; and because of these technological development, learners have very different learning experiences compared to learners in the past.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the experiences of the older generation is limited than those of the present ones. The important thing is we teachers, have to catch up with the technological developments and how we, empowered teachers can utilize these in our classrooms.

Learning goes on. We may not be able to catch up with the fast pace of the younger generation but the thing is, as empowered teachers, we can narrow down if not totally close the gap between our experiences and that of our students.