Here's a finding worth mulling over:
At the end of their careers, accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems.
I’m one of those highly accomplished Baby Boomer teachers. I love working with my students. I love working with new teachers. I love working with colleagues in staff development. I love writing and researching. I love being a keeper of institutional knowledge for my school and my school system. I love developing my professional skills with experiences such as the Santa Cruz mentor training. My own children are grown, my personal life is in order, my professional network is strong, my knowledge is current, and my skills are refined by practice. I’m not ready to quit. I’m ready to do more.
I'm ready to take on new challenges, but I find that there are few options at this point in my career. Those of us who chose to stay in the classroom in our 30s are now expected to stay in our classrooms in our 50s. But by limiting how we are used, school systems fail to realize the full return on their investment in skilled classroom practitioners.
...It is a faulty and costly assumption to allow accomplished veterans, who have been the beneficiaries of a substantial, long‐term professional development investment, to walk away from their careers just because they are in their fifties. We must develop selection criteria and processes that enable veteran teachers to contribute to schools according to their expertise and level of commitment.
What do you think? Post your thoughts.
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