Is it easier or harder to be an experienced teacher?
There are lots of ways it’s definitely easier:
- You can anticipate more
- You’ve already done a lot of the prep work
- You’ve already made lots of the potential mistakes
- You already know the way the school operates
- You often already know your students
There are lots more – how else has teaching gotten easier for you as you’ve moved through your career?
But there are some ways it gets harder, too:
- Sometimes knowing the pitfalls isn’t enough to avoid them…which makes it worse.
- Happy memories have the potential to make the present struggle feel worse.
- You keep getting older and the students stay the same age.
Actually, that’s a pretty short list. I’ll take the experience, thanks.