Experienced teachers — assets or liabilities?

Sometimes I ask the question, “Since experience is the greatest teacher, can we then say that experienced teachers are the greatest?...” For some teachers, experience means mastering the dirty tricks of the trade.  Nevertheless, to experience experience, is a glorious experience!

John Dewey wrote, “Education is a social process ... Education is growth... Edu-cation is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” Another highly respected author and educator penned these loaded lines:  “The world would be so much richer with teachers who give of their love, and not merely of their thoughts... The real teacher is never selfish or pedantic, showing his learning for learning’s sake. He uses his precious gifts and resources to help others to realise their dreams.  He carries a candle, ready to ignite another pilgrim’s flickering lamp... The greatest way teachers can repay their own teachers, is by giving to their charges, what their teachers gave to them.” The matter of education, none can deny, is at the heart of what determines the quality of life; so much so that Dewey calls it “life itself.”  And quality teachers are the key to quality education. Last week, this column made the point that if one is not trained, then one is simply not a teacher.  “Teaching is a sacred call,” I noted.  This writer also expressed the view that if untrained teachers were allowed to “experiment on” children in order “to gain experience,” that’s not education, it’s abuse. 

You don’t take an individual who desires to be a policeman and put him out on the streets with a sub-machine gun and say, “Experiment on the people to gain experience for two or three years and then you’ll come in for training.”  We certainly don’t do any such thing with doctors either. So why do it with teachers? However, although training is so important, it is certainly not all there is to making good educators.  This training must be translated into action.  It must be functionally and actively put to use in “helping others to realise their dreams” and “igniting another pilgrim’s flickering light.” When this takes place, training moves to another level which is called, experience.  It is authentic experience.  It is the combination of training and experience that makes good educators.  Great people are people of great habit.  The principle must be made a practice, and the practice must be made a lifestyle.  This is the essence of good habit and healthy experience. 

Training can be received from others but experience is acquired along the route of personal involvement, application and practice.  Hence, it is said, “Experience is more caught than taught.”  “Experience is the greatest teacher.”  We hear the expression all the time and there is little debate as to the veracity of it. Experience and practice, as we can observe, are primarily synonymous.  And, as they say, “Practice makes perfect.”  Practice may indeed make you perfect, but practising the wrong thing will make you perfectly wrong! In a sense therefore, practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent. Sometimes in my lectures I ask the question, “Since experience is supposed to be the greatest teacher, can we then say that experienced teachers are the greatest?”  Understandably, there are usually mixed responses.  Sadly, many principals will lament that their greatest fear when a dynamic, zealous young/new teacher comes on staff, is that they would soon be “spoilt” or “corrupted” by “experienced” staff. 

Often, high on the priority list of the experienced “predators” is the scheme to “turn” the new staff member “against the principal.”  The “experiences” passed on include how to sign the wrong time on the staff register and “make sure yuh take all yuh days,” referring to sick and occasional leave.  For some teachers, their understanding of experience is mastering the art of dirty tricks of the trade, over their years in the field. There are many teachers who pursue programmes in teacher education and training, merely for the purpose of certification and upgrading “to move up into a higher salary range.”  They don’t implement the skills learnt in actual classroom work. There are others who start off quite effectively, incorporating the skills, methodologies and pedagogical measures in their classroom deliveries.  But after a year or so of experience, they simply join the crowd of mediocrity and delinquency.  Then you hear some of these same folks bragging about having “20 to 30 years of experience.”  What they really have is one year experience repeated 20 or 30 times!

We must admit though, that in some cases, the poor system and lack of resources in some schools, prevent teachers from practising their acquired skills. The reality is, experienced teachers can be a great asset or they can be the worst liability.  Good, genuine experienced teachers are more precious than gold.  And we do have several of this kind currently in the system.  Their priceless services should be maximised. In so doing, we may also require a reviewing of the “compulsory” retirement age, which at present, to a considerable degree, robs the system of some of its richest resources. The sad scenario so strikingly resembles the lament of the brilliant poet, “The flower that blooms today, tomorrow dies/All that we wish to stay, tempts and flies.”  All in all, to experience experience, is a glorious experience!