cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Ana Patrícia Almeida
‘Experience’ is such an important asset that many younger educators lack to some extent in the teaching profession. It is not through a lack of trying, but this is something that has traditionally come over time and through different successes and failures that people need to go through to continuously learn. When I first started teaching, I remember the little looks I would get about not understanding what teaching was really like because I had not put in the years that others had. I will be the first to tell you, that I have learned so much and changed my attitude towards many things in education in the past few years. I shutter to think how far I have grown from the time that I talked about educational technology in this video. I don’t even want to think about that time!
Although there is no substitute for experience, I have been amazed by some of the wisdom that we are seeing from some younger teachers in this practice. When many I convocated from with in university (including myself) could not have even told you what the word “pedagogy” meant, I am seeing teachers do things that are extremely innovative and seeing success with themselves and students quickly.
Talking about this with others, I believe that the access to not only information, but actual practitioners from around the world has helped us to learn from the experience of others. I know that I could sit and listen to veteran educators for a long time, but the opportunities were seemingly few and far between. Through reading blogs, reading tweets, and having conversations with some amazing educators, both young and old, I am gaining from their experiences, which has helped to improve my own learning curve.
So yes, I don’t think that anything can substitute for the actual experience of going through actual events. I can follow the World War II tweets that are documenting WWII on a daily basis, but it is nothing like actually having fought in that war. That being said, when we see others sharing their stories and experience in the classroom we can get so much better for it. We all bring different things to the table and if we are willing to connect and learn from those (both offline and online) we can become much better teachers a lot quicker.
