Generations of Learning: A Professional Learning Experience

Abstract

Generations of learning, as a research project, sought to extend the professional experience learning of pre-service teachers by pairing them with retired teachers. This was pursued with the express purpose of extending student experiences in their initial teacher education course and as an additional strategy to further support pre-service teachers in the quest of becoming a teaching professional. This chapter reports on the intergenerational learning that characterised the learning that occurred between pre-service teachers and the retired teachers in the research. In the intergenerational spaces of this research project, conversations between the paired retirees and the pre-service teachers moved fluidly between the theoretical and the practical, using the stories of the retiree and the wonderings of the pre-service teacher as the guide. This chapter focuses on the experience of one pair of participants to reveal how the learning that occurred between the pre-service teachers and the retired teachers was generative and reciprocal. The generative nature of the exchanges that occurred between the retired teachers and the pre-service teachers centred on a shared respect for and responsibility towards the teaching profession, where developing relationships was recognised as a key element of the professional experience of being a teaching professional.