Aging can teach us many lessons. Its difficult ones include humility and fragility. But some of its lessons are consoling. One of its most consoling lessons, that I have only seen recently, is confidence. I see this in my work as a teacher. Not my teaching work with students, but my work as a teacher, among my colleagues.
Among my colleagues, I usually keep to myself and do my work with students. I have known many teachers whose time is taken up by gossip and intrigue among their colleagues. I have learned recently, however, that taking seriously one’s role as an elder means that I have a responsibility among my colleagues, especially my younger colleagues.
I have learned in recent years, that my many years as a teacher have gifted me with insight and practical wisdom. I do not lecture my colleagues, but I do offer what I have learned my on teaching matters: curriculum questions, classroom management issues, techniques for grading, teaching writing, for engaging students with specific authors and texts.
I always let a colleague know I have some ideas about a particular teaching matter and that I’d be glad to share them if my colleague would like me to. I don’t just launch into an uninvited education class! But if the colleague expresses interest, then I will share what I have discovered. In the last few years, I have discovered many young colleagues who actually invite my experience.
We have had some rich conversations about how to comment on student writing in ways that encourage, teach, and result in positive changes in student writing. My department chair, after observing my class discussing an Emily Dickinson poem, asked me to present to the department various ways to teach poetry. That presentation has resulted in many unplanned and “unofficial” discussions about how to wisely use classroom time, what to avoid, where to invest energy and time.
While teaching might well be different from other vocations and jobs, when it comes to what experience offers, I have found that some colleagues are interested in what I have discovered in many years as a teacher. In this case, aging, becomes a gift. I savor it.
Photograph Credit: I took the photograph above on a rainy morning in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. November, 2023.
Joseph Ross 