Saturday, February 6, 2016

The Benefit of Experience

I've often said that the two careers I chose, cooking and teaching, don't always get the respect they deserve, because everyone eats and everyone went to school, so everyone thinks they can do either job. I'll also repeat the story a colleague once told me about her ex-husband who couldn't imagine why she was tired at the end of the school day. "All you do is sit at your desk and say, 'You may begin.' What's so hard about that?" he asked her.

I guess it's one thing when people outside the profession think the job is easy, but recently a couple of teachers in our school seem to discount the value of experience in the field. They are career switchers who have implied in conversation that their private sector time has prepared them just as completely to teach as someone else's time actually spent in the classroom.

Maybe, but here's at least one observation they might find valuable:

Middle school kids are like magpies; they often can't resist shiny objects. Ergo, don't use push pins on bulletin boards in the hallway; they will be stolen.


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