Regular readers of this blog (still there, Mum?) will have come to appreciate its meticulous attention to detail, the carefully crafted sentences, the devastating use of apposite quotations, the unrivalled intellectual rigour and the pin-sharp analysis.
Well, not this time. I’ve just read something that’s really ticked me off and I’m going to respond, rapidly and quite possibly injudiciously. At least I’m not doing it by tweet, though. I’m not that reckless. But, there may still be spelling mistakes, loose sentence construction and even a swearword. OK? OK.
The thing I’ve read is Grainne Hallahan’s recent TES article entitled Where did all the over-50s teachers go? Let me be clear from the outset: it’s not Grainne that’s annoyed me. It’s a good article, well researched, and you should read it.
No, what’s annoyed me are one comment and one, er, sense. Let’s go in order.
Quite early in the article Jack Worth, workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, is discussing the decrease in the numbers of teachers over 50. He is quoted as saying, “[This] can be partly explained because there was a big cohort of teachers over 50 who, in 2010, were approaching retirement.”
And later: “More teachers than usual decided…that they had had enough of teaching and this may have been particularly the case for teachers over 50 as they were approaching retirement anyway.”
Well, give me a moment to lever myself off the scrapheap. I am over 50. I am teacher. And I am in no way approaching retirement.
On a practical level, it’s still many years away. But, much more importantly, the quotations suggest that 50+ teachers have one foot out the door, one eye on the armchair, and are just marking time until no marking time.
Stuff that. Last book I read? Peps Mccrea. Next on the list? Hendrick and Kirschner. June 10th: presenting at my third ResearchEd for this school year. Last Tuesday: delivered second CPD session of the year: Rosenshine last time, cognitive load theory this.
And I’m no kind of exception. Go to any educonference and you’ll find plenty of us superannuated has-beens, investing the same time and energy in our professional development as the young guns. Hell, some of us even give the keynotes.
Sit in any common room and listen to the ancients speak of how they want to get better at teaching Liberalism or photosynthesis. We still care, ladies and gentlemen. We know we’re not the finished article.
Which leads me to the second part of the article that set me off. It’s harder to sum up, as it’s never explicitly said, but it’s the sense that the next generation of superstar educators should listen to us greyhairs because we’ve been round the block a few times.
Don’t patronize me. Respect my teaching because it’s good, evidence informed, responsive. Notice that I’m still creating new resources because I’m keeping with up scholarship. Bow down and worship my extraordinary ability to draw brilliant answers out of the most disaffected child.
But don’t think that just because I’m old, I must be good. I’ve been playing cricket for years and I’m still distinctly average. Talk to me because you can learn from me, not only because I’ve got some war stories.
So gather round, my young apprentices, and remember: we 50+ers are still here, and still learning, and that’s why you should enjoy being our colleagues. Not only because we’re not dead yet.
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