I'll elaborate.
It's only to be expected with years and years and decades and decades of teacher-centered education traditions.
I'll elaborate further. I'll give a 'good' example of the type I mean. People who are baby-boomers and lived through massive changes in technology, teaching standards, from unit curriculum to outcomes based learning.
I work across the hall from a teacher who has worked in my school for forty years.
Forty. And she and her male counterpart/equivalent (who I think has been there for nearly forty years) in the same department has only ever worked at this school and they're both in their 60s or close to.
They won't retire. They'll probably fall asleep during recess one day over their knitting and we'll realise they're dead.
Imagine old dragons, with crotchety voices and a tendency to grumble about 'the good old days' when there was national service....
Who wouldn't know what rap music is and thinks that Destiny's Child is a contraceptive device.
And the tradition that they've been raised under and have (pretty much) taught under was rote learning from books. And they've slowly and I mean
slowly adapted over the years. Because times do change and they've had to change (sometimes grudgingly and hesitatingly) with it.
But they scare the hell out of the Year 8s.
As they do have very traditionalist classrooms. You can see it in the seating arrangements. Everything in nice, neat lines. All facing the front of the room. You are only to answer questions if you are called upon. And you are only to ask questions by raising your hand.
It's pretty much time-warp 1950s.
Yet they take part in cross-curricular activities, they do help out with excursions and 'get out of their element' as much as any teacher (and we do that a lot!) And that helps students relax a little more around them. They've got a sort of 'fond' reputation as being 'the last of an era'.
They have students whose
mothers who were in their classes. Aunts who tell them 'say hi from me! They taught me back in the 60s!' I wouldn't be surprised if one day they'll have a
granddaughter of a girl they taught turn up in their classes.
And there's
plenty of them out there. The 'chalkies'. The old-guard, like I said. They
have given a high-quality education... but in a very traditionalist style. If they were truly horrific, they would have gone by now, thank hades. Or at least, one hopes so.
And I know that there are others out there who take this model and go to the extreme - the
real dragons and nasty sort who do bitch about their job and
should have got out of the system. Hades knows, I was taught by quite a few, have had as a factor in my choosing to work elsewhere the experience of working with some, and I still see them at conferences.
But I think we have to be realistic and understand that there are many teachers who continue on into their fifties and even into their sixties in the profession. You can't expect a dramatic change to student-centered learning and adoption of different learning strategies by people who have been teaching longer than I have been alive.
They do have pride in themselves and a certain pride in what they do. Hell, there must be something that makes them turn up the next year that isn't just the money / sadist tendencies / free tea in the staffroom.... But sometimes what they do in their job
isn't that effective as it could be. And to patronise them or force latter-day generation teachers to adopt new teaching strategies ad hoc.... could just result in passive aggressiveness and a real problem in the classroom. Just exacerbate things to become worse...
Everyone is a stakeholder. We have to care about teachers too, help to care about the kids as it isn't just about the kids!
There's a hell of a lot of baby-boomers out there, Clar. They're my bosses, the teachers across the hall and the fellow attendees at the teaching conferences. Gotta work with them and gotta not treat them like the
enemy, even if some of their strategies leave a hell of a lot to be desired. Treat the situation as a whole and not throw out what can be a damned good teacher with consideration in supporting them and use their years of experience that
should count for something.
