Lien On Me: Shocking, but not Surprising

It’s shocking that a year has elapsed in uncharted territory with evolving learning environments without categorically acquiring the wisdom from the exclusive authorities in teaching and learning. As far as I’m concerned, teachers who have been teaching for the past year are the “exclusive authorities.” How could anyone, such as myself with 36 years of teaching experience pre-COVID, allege they know how to teach today? The disruption to educational systems was not temporary, yet we didn’t foster or preserve the knowledge of the pioneers in teaching and the engineers in learning.

It’s not surprising a pandemic could not crumble the barriers to unleashing teaching and learning expertise from the primary sources. The barriers are historically systemic, pervasive and uncomplicated. To reduce the barriers, it would require investing in autonomous conditions, relinquishing control, and professional trust. We can trace how teacher wisdom has been placated and dismissed over time, therefore the chaos of the pandemic is not a reason, nor excuse in why it continues.

The value of teacher wisdom is rarely uncovered in productive or meaningful ways. It impacts attrition, yet we principally disregard it. It impacts retention, yet we principally disregard it. It’s outrageous that a crisis wasn’t sufficient evidence to cause second order change, however it’s not unexpected that the obstacles are insurmountable in a system that operates on institutional memory. 

Shocking, but not surprising teacher wisdom struggles to emerge as an invaluable asset to our educational systems.

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