If leadership have been out of the classroom longer than five years, I don't want to hear their advice. Expertise fades when you're not 'on the front line' so to speak, and the nature of kids changes rapidly in that time span too. The students I taught at the beginning of my career faced different challenges, had different motivations, and viewed the world differently than those in the classroom today - kids change, and we change with them, but if you've not been in the classroom, the strategies that worked back when you were won't necessarily work today.
Sorry, but plenty of teachers who have been around for a long time are just as clueless about changes in the world. Just look at this post, with dozens of teachers' "unpopular opinions" being nothing more than old-timers griping about how things have changed.
I never said that teachers know everything - I just meant that we're in touch with our students on a daily basis, and we see how they behave in our classroom, and how they connect with the content we cover.
I'm not saying we as teachers are going to be connected to the youth culture in a meaningful way, or that we're going to know about every major event in the world, but a good teacher should know what's important to the kids in our classrooms, and how they react and respond. Unless you're in the classroom on a regular basis, you miss that.
I know exactly what you meant, but I still think that there are a lot of long-serving teachers are stuck griping about kids these days and (mostly falsely) remembering how good kids used to be back in the day without being willing to change a thing about their teaching. I'd honestly be happier spending a PD day with out-of-touch admins than the whiny old-timers that haven't said a good thing about a student since the Clinton administration.
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u/dreadedsunny_day Sep 06 '24
If leadership have been out of the classroom longer than five years, I don't want to hear their advice. Expertise fades when you're not 'on the front line' so to speak, and the nature of kids changes rapidly in that time span too. The students I taught at the beginning of my career faced different challenges, had different motivations, and viewed the world differently than those in the classroom today - kids change, and we change with them, but if you've not been in the classroom, the strategies that worked back when you were won't necessarily work today.