Lessons Learned the Hard Way
The Priceless Value of Experience
As I prepare to interview candidates for our Inclusion Coach positions, I keep thinking about the worth of the experience they bring. What should we value, I wonder?
Experience as a special ed teacher so they could empathize with teachers during coaching sessions, understanding the complexities of IEP development, specialized instruction, and collaborative professional relationships?
Experience as a school or district administrator so they could be comfortable during reflective conversations with school leaders?
Experience leading professional development and teaching in higher education so they are ready to lead professional learning communities and faculty workshops?
Experience problem solving and tailoring systems to local needs so they could adjust our packages for specific scenarios in our school districts?
Experience listening to someone’s struggles with the capacity to see an opening for action so they could hit the ground running when assigned to a district?
All of those experiences are vital, but I think that they alone aren’t enough. My thinking crystalized yesterday in a conversation with my husband. Maybe if I explain….
Since the pandemic, we’ve appreciated the convenience of ordering most of our groceries online and then showing up at the store to have their attendants simply load our order into the trunk. It saves us time, trouble, and it’s cheaper!
Robert has taken the lead, asking if there’s anything special we want to order. Until yesterday, I didn’t appreciate the value of his experience. I offered to do it this time. Maybe a mistake.
He walked me through the process. Does this remind you of special ed task analysis?
Put in our username & password.
Click here to select your pickup time and date. Now, you have exactly 30 minutes to finish ordering or you’ll lose that pickup time. I’ve learned the hard way. So don’t get distracted. ..
Click on “prior orders” to see our history. Items will only be added to the new list if you select them.
Select the first item - cream cheese. Go to the drop down to select how many you want. If you want a different flavor or a different size, make a mental note because if you go off the prior orders list, it’s hard to get back in… I’ve learned the hard way.
Continue with the prior order items first. Then search for new items.
Oh and by-the-way when you get to the end to check out (assuming it’s within your 30 minute window), the app will tell you which items are unavailable. They’ll suggest substitutions -- other brands or other products. If you don’t respond, they’ll simply cancel those items from your list. I’ve learned the hard way.
There were more instructions, of course. As I entered our order, I asked several more questions, which reminded him of other things he had learned the hard way.
He started telling me horror stories of the times when….
That’s when I started thinking about writing this blog! (Sorry honey)
Two Kinds of Experiences
I think there are two kinds of experience:
The first is work experience. These are the experiences we enter onto our resumes -- middle school Special Education Teacher or Elementary Principal. We often go into more detail in the job description, listing the specific skills and tasks we’ve learned to do. Our candidates for Inclusion Coach all have impressive resumes.
The other type of experience (perhaps the most valuable) is failure experience. I think our biggest assets are those we’ve gained from our failures -- the things we “learned the hard way.” Those lessons learned will never be forgotten. They came from those moments when we took a courageous leap to try something new -- and it didn’t turn out well.
THOSE MOMENTS have been our best teachers. Those lessons learned make us more valuable than individuals who never took the risk or those who “know all about it.”
I’m talking about life wisdom here. What we’ve learned about placing a grocery order, about calming a student in meltdown, about coaching a teacher to use universal design, about empowering a principal to take a stand at the next faculty meeting. None of these experiences will show up on a resume.
