During my undergraduate studies, I heard people speak of how public education is a profession that “eats our young”. While I wasn’t sure how this could be much different than the challenges and rituals rookie employees might face in other industries, I entered cautiously. I, personally, don’t think I ever experienced being loaded with the toughest kids, being given the hardest schedules, being assigned to the worst committees, being given extra tasks, or any of the threats they warned me about. If I was “dumped on”, it apparently didn’t work and I remain blissfully naïve as I’ve felt that each child in my care was a gem that left me with an improved polish (mine and theirs, however you want to read it ;).
Maybe I’ve been lucky. I’ve learned more each year, that’s for sure. I feel I’m in a career that will never be mastered and if I ever thought I had, that would surely be naïve. Still, something in my heart sulks a little when I interpret the spirit of “eating our young” from another teacher. Recently, I was at the seminar of a nationally-recognized educator who made it a point to repeatedly call out first-year teachers in a room of hundreds, gently but surely mocking them for their status of being born after she’d left the classroom. There is a value to the experience we gain with age, that I will not deny, but the teachers who have left the best marks on my mind and heart are those who have never made me feel any younger or older, wiser or naïve than themselves. Learning and teaching is a sister- and brotherhood, a parent-child relationship, a marriage of minds, a debate and a compromise, and always a joint creation. I believe we should never relegate someone’s value to their inexperience in our world and I surely hope if I am ever in a position of influence others, I won’t be so naïve.
(By the way, there is a conspiracy theory for eating our young. If you pay into the pension fund, but leave teaching before you’re vested at ten years, it provides for those who remain eligible…but I’m not a conspirator.)
I had never heard that comment before about “eating their young”. In my school, newbie teachers are purposely given a very “middle of the road” class in terms of behavior, academics, etc. and are told to ease into participating in the extras, allowing them to wait until they get their feet underneath them. As for myself, I am more than happy to glean new stuff from those who just left the immersion of ideas in college! I was lucky to have that experience as a newbie, too. My team was eager to hear my ideas yet helped me all the time. I guess I’m glad I didn’t hear that warning….I might have walked in clad in armor that wouldn’t have been necessary!
I’m glad you aren’t familiar with that cliche, but curious since we were in undergrad together…alas you’re also a “non-traditional” newbie like me!
“Eating one’s young?” I truly believe that only rank-ordered species do that, and the human spirits do not ever really mean to do that…I truly believe that NOTHING is taught until something is learned..and NOTHING is learned, without some medium of “teaching”. Long live the continuum/process of education, and teach and learn until your last breath! LOVE from a life-long learner…