Should seniority still rule over 21st C skilled teachers in a school today?

When doing "staff cuts" in a private school, should a school principal decide to keep teachers with 30 + years working at school but with not interest in joining the 21st C education that the school brags about, or should he or she keep a newer (5 years working at school) but experienced teacher who is also immersed in 21st Century education?
What would you do if you were that school principal?

Tags: Seniority, cuts, job, loss, staff

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Permalink Reply by Ian Carmichael on May 28, 2009 at 1:37am

And the principal's perspective is different/distant yet again. (If you read my antepenultimate comment, you'll see I'm not equating gee-gaws. gimmicks or machines that go 'bing' with effectiveness. Nor am I equating length of service with effectiveness. It's a very difficult issue, not solved by self-reporting or student comments by themselves, nor by tests and league tables neither.)

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Permalink Reply by Noemi Szoychen on May 28, 2009 at 12:33pm

I totally agree with you on the fact that veterans teachers are very valuable to any school. But I also believe that younger teachers bring in such freshness and richness in experiences lived as part of the new generation of learners. I think they both should be given opportunities to team up and combine their efforts to collaborate, as well as learn from each other instead of setting them apart.
I firmly believe that a school principal should not have to be in the position of choosing one or the other, but have an "out of the box" attitude in finding ways of staff retention. I know, school principals do not act on their own (most of the time,) but they depend from a board of education who decides over school budgets and allocations; that's a different topic of discussion.
I feel empathy for any school principal that right now is having to cut off teaching positions from their schools. This is a lose lose situation for students and teachers as well.

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Permalink Reply by Anne Pemberton on May 28, 2009 at 1:02pm

Morah,

I feel sorry for anyone who has to let people go on any job. I'm sure it is not just teachers and principals who have this problem. It is tough to give up employees when business or school enrollment goes down. And, we are in a recession, so the problem of people cut having a hard time finding another job stares the person in the face.

Anne

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Permalink Reply by Noemi Szoychen on May 28, 2009 at 5:28am

In the case of a foreign language teaching for instance, I would not only limit effectiveness to language fluency and knowledge, but also what's the student's attitude towards learning such language. If you ask me, I feel I have done my job right when I can inspire a student to embrace and love what ever subject I teach.
It's not just a matter of having fun when you a learning, or how innovating your didactic techniques may be. One of our best teachers at school is a veteran history teacher who due to physical issues she teaches her class only sitting down from her chair. Yet, she leads students through fantastic journeys through time and space, and she's not even using a computer! Or take my own son's example. Despite the fact that he's always been a good student, math has always been a subject that he would chose to avoid. That is until this year, when in his own words " I have learned to love math" with his current middle school teacher. I asked him how has this teacher achieved that in him and he said: Mom, she makes math relevant and fun, she helps me make connections with other subjects and apply my knowledge beyond the classroom's walls.