To come into teaching straight from university gives you no opportunity to experience life outside an educational establishment. Perhaps we should raise the age for becoming a teacher to 26.
Tabitha Twitchet

I’ve seen good (most), bad (very few) and indifferent (all of us from time to time) teachers of all ages. I’m working with a maths teacher who is 24 and one of the best educators I’ve watched in action.
seren_dipity

I believe that some years spent away from the education system is desirable but not a necessary precondition for being a teacher.
doomzebra

If people had to drop out of a graduate job at 25 or 26 and go back to being a student or trainee, would there be an adequate take-up of the profession?
MickTravis

If the under-26s were stopped from teaching, I suspect many good graduates would eschew teaching as a career.
FolkFan

I’m 26. Ever since primary school I have only ever wanted to teach. Most of the younger teachers I work with are the same as me. We are in this job because we love it and it is our vocation.
seza-lou

Why is it that some people who come to teaching later in life seem to have such a chip on their shoulder about those who choose it as a first career? Could it be that they’re insecure about their own life choices?
BillyBobJoe

I was involved in real life when I was teaching. I had to deal with the pleasant, the obnoxious, the threatening and the foul. I had to work, make ends meet, raise children and survive. I think the view that teaching is separate from real life is nonsense.
racroesus

Experience helps, but you can’t render teaching down to having done “something” so readily. I expect there are teachers who are better than me who have only ever been in academia. I also expect there are teachers worse than me with experience outside this job.
Captain Obvious

www.tesconnect.comteachingage

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