An Old Dog in a New School

At 46 years old, I am preparing to teach in a new school. I have done this four time before, but in three of those instances, I was a novice. My most recent assignment was during the pandemic. I had taught for eighteen years and been an instructional coach for six. Returning to the classroom, I felt confident in my abilities. I have never been arrogant, but teaching for as long as I had and coaching others, inflated my ego. I knew what good teaching looked like and I knew that I was a good teacher. Teaching during a global pandemic, however, gave me a much-needed dose of humility. I may have been a good teacher, but I was not a good teacher that year. The 2020-2021 school year showed me that I had much to learn about teaching and learning.

After six years teaching in that school, I am again starting anew. This fall, I join a new faculty in a new school. I have twenty-five years of experience (the last six of which were the most challenging years in my career). I am a community member who cares about our neighborhood school, and I am an experienced parent with three teenage children. I am an old teacher in a new school; an old, new teacher. An old dog.

The earliest example of the idiom, You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, is in John Fitzherbert’s The Boke of Husbandry. This agricultural book was written as a practical guide for farming life. It provides detailed instructions on how best to breed and care for farm animals, how to improve the soil with manure, and the correct seasons for sowing of seeds. In the section, To belte shepe1, Fitzherbert explains that a shepherd must have a working dog, a hook, shears, and a tar-box. He must also teach his puppy to ensure a well-trained and compliant animal. Older dogs are too stubborn to obey.

In 1546, English writer John Heywood popularized a version of the advice in his famous collection of English proverbs, The Proverbs Of John Heywood. Eventually, this idiomatic phrase jumped from husbandry to human disposition; older people, like older dogs, are too set in their ways to change: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

As a middle-aged man, I prefer my routines. I stay inside most evenings. I am reluctant to watch anything new on Netflix. I like listening to my favorite familiar artists. And while I enjoy eating at restaurants, my ordering is becoming routine. I like what I like and do not have the same urge to try all the new things.

As a middle-aged, veteran teacher, I balance hubris with humility. I know for certain that homogenized classrooms and standardized testing are not good for teachers nor students. I know from experience that students need more physical books than apps; less screen time and more thinking time; and that boxed curricula offer more empty promises than guarantees. My experience and expertise provide a steady buoy of what is best for students in the choppy sea of performance data and fads. Being a seasoned veteran insulates me from the predicable barrage of stress, anxiety, and pressure.

I had forgotten, however, what if feels like to be the new teacher in a school building. There is much I do not know: names, logistics, procedures, expectations, staff dynamics, the building’s culture. Waves of overwhelm crashed over me when I opened my Welcome Back! email. Not only is there the massive To-Do list, but I also must learn how to be a teacher in this particular school. I am nervous. Similar to new students entering my classroom midyear, I am walking into an established ecosystem. I may be an older dog, but there are many new tricks I need to master this year.

Despite being scared, I am confident my new colleagues plan to welcome me and help me adjust. I would not have chosen this teaching assignment if the principal were an authoritarian leader who forces compliance (make an olde dogge to stoupe). Instead, I am sure that after this first week, my new colleagues will accept me as part of the community. I hope to find that my values align with my colleagues, and feel a sense of belonging as I navigate all of the new things, including the cheesy icebreakers.

I am still an older teacher who resists ridiculous conformity. I cannot forget that many things have not changed over the summer. There is still a push for higher standardized test scores in reading, and reaching this goal using basal textbooks, boxed curricula, and standardized reading instruction continues to be the expectation. One challenge of being an older new teacher is being an amenable team player while resisting initiatives that go against my hard-earned values. I want to make a good impression while not sacrificing what I believe to be true about teaching and learning. I do not want to enter this school year sans intellectual humility. There will be staff who have been teaching longer than I have, colleagues who know the building’s culture better than I do, and those who have different teaching techniques than my own. This year, being an older teacher in a new school, I have three principles to follow.

It is easy to turn presumptuous after teaching a number of years in the same building. You know all the routines and understand how the administration leads. You have learned how to skirt around expectations you find needless or deplorable, and if you have been in the same school long enough, you may have established yourself as a leader in the building. However, I find that listening first is always a good habit. There will be whole staff meetings and team collaboration sessions where adults jockey to be heard. The impulse to raise my hand and offer my own opinion in strong, but in most instances, you learn more from listening. Being a new teacher in the building, it is important to learn as much as you can. When you are talking, you are not learning. I have developed a practice of waiting to speak when I am eager to share. This means sitting in uncomfortable silence and patiently listening to others speak. You can learn a lot about a school’s culture by watching the dynamics of a staff meeting, seeing which teachers are outspoken, who is eager to please, and who is checked out. When stress levels are high, and anxiety is palatable, listening first helps you figure out how best to proceed or respond when necessary. Oftentimes, minutes are wasted in needless debates about things outside of our control. Navigating a new school culture, even if I have strong opinions, I think it best to talk less; smile more.

I’m new here is an underrated phrase for understanding a school’s culture. There is no shame is being new; ignorance is expected. I cannot be afraid to ask for help or admit when I do not understand something. During my first year at my previous school, I must have said, I’m new here about 5,000 times. The key is to use this introductory statement as a discourse marker for asking questions. For example, saying I’m new here; why do students need to sign in and out before using the restroom? gives you valuable insight into how a school runs. Asking why about how a school operates or about specific bureaucratic procedures puts you in an active and curious mindset about the status quo that others take for granted. Being new allows you to question everything without much criticism. Asking Why do we have to submit our lesson plans every Friday? or saying, I’m new here; why do we have to turn in a summary of our team meeting? communicates to others that a policy does not make sense and should be questioned. Sitting in a staff meeting, I once questioned why our school only schedules assemblies in the morning. We would hold a fundraising pep rally or have a schoolwide assembly, and then for the remainder of the day, students were unfocused. When I asked, another teacher piped up, I’ve been here for fifteen years and we’ve always had morning assemblies. This opened a discussion about the possibility of changing a routine that teachers took for granted. In the end, even the principal did not know why we only held morning assemblies and agreed to organize them in the afternoon. We held our next fundraising assembly in the afternoon. Our lessons were shortened for the day, but when the students got ramped up, we packed up and sent them home.

A curious mindset lasts longer than the first year in a new school.2 It often takes a few years before you are familiar with how the school is run. Even after I understand the status quo, I have been known to feign ignorance to question a school’s tradition. Asking dumb question forces administrators to be clear about why a process exists and exposes old assumptions about teaching and learning.

High school English teacher, Marcus Luther, encourages us to disrupt the cycle of isolation that is common when entering a new building by asking a simple question:

How can I be a positive part of another educator’s story this year?

This requires investing one’s time and energy in other teachers. As someone new to a building, it would be easy for me to keep my head down, learn as much as I can, and get through the school year as independently as possible. Luther, instead, suggests choosing a few teachers in the building (they do not need to be teammates), and take “time to understand their work and the values they hold”; “learn how their experience is going at your school and what could make it better”; and commit to “authentically be[ing] a positive part of their story of this school year.” It is excellent advice pushes me out of the passive consumption of all the new things and into active acts of service.

You do not need to be a veteran teacher to mentor other teachers. All teachers can be mentored no matter how many years of experience. Teaching is a team sport; we improve through collaboration, embracing our interdependence, and freely sharing wisdom and resources. No teacher is an island. We all need community to thrive.

Dog behaviorists debunked the adage, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Using positive reinforcement, dogs can learn new behaviors at any age, even if they have never been trained before. It may take them longer than when they were a puppy, but senior dogs benefit from learning new tricks. Likewise, behavioral scientists contest aging as an inevitable loss of ones’ cognitive abilities. Dr. Becca R. Levy, professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH), found that nearly half of adults aged 65 and older show measurable improvements in their cognitive function over time. Old dogs can learn new tricks.

Novelty is a defining feature of teaching. Every year brings a fresh batch of students, all with individual strengths, challenges, and personalities. Each school year, requires an immense amount of flexibility as staffing changes, budgets shrink, and new curricula are introduced. The school year is never a smooth, straight line to June. It is tempting to recycle old lessons or activities, but having an infusion of fresh ideas helps revitalize curricular standards to better meet current students’ needs. Veteran teachers have strong foundational pedagogical knowledge; they know what works and what does not. This does not mean all experienced teachers teach the same thing in the same way year after year. Some do, but most masterful teachers I have witnessed repeat core pedagogical practices. Activities can change, for example, but designing a psychologically safe classroom does not. How one builds a culture of belonging and safety can change, but veteran teachers know that the learning community is the highest priority. So, while I may be an old dog who has firm pedagogical values and is comfortable creating a classroom culture of belonging, caring, and respect, I cannot wait to collaborate with my new teammates and learn new teaching strategies.

At the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, I made a list of new ideas I want to try in my classroom. Although I struggled last year to implement these new ideas, this does not mean I am no longer excited about trying new things in my classroom. Marcus Luther encourages us to “find something to get excited about.” I am excited about bonding with my new students and teammates. I am excited about familiarizing myself with the ins and outs of a new school. I am excited about working to improve our neighborhood school. I am excited to refine my teacher moves and learn new ones. I want to integrate literary theory into my literacy instruction3. I want to strengthen my dialogic teaching through classroom discussions and Socratic Seminars. I want to improve my students’ abilities to think critically and clearly about history, using the Four Question Method (4QM). The challenge this year: balancing my strong (old) pedagogy with new ideas in a new school. I have a good feeling about this school year. This old dog still has a lot to be excited about!

Have a great week!

— Adrian

You can learn new things at any age, with Rachel Wu, PhD | American Psychology Association

• In this podcast episode, Dr. Rachel Wu from the University of California, Riverside, discusses why lifelong learning matters, how mid-life adults can learn more like young kids, why feedback and failure are important, and what types of learning opportunities to seek out. I find this research comforting.

• This reminder from Marcus Luther is an important one for the beginning of the year. Do yourself a favor and have a listen before you head back to school.

Art of the "Dumb" Question | Think Jar Collective

• I remember hearing all through school, there is no such thing as a dumb question. And yet, many times during a staff meeting, I hear myself saying, Can I ask a dumb question? In this article, Jim Force shares how “asking dumb questions” enhances one’s creativity. Force offers an easy technique for asking more creative questions.

• In this article by Andrew Maxwell, he discusses how the most influential innovators are often the quietest people in the room. They pay attention and notice things others do not see. Maxwell takes Stephen Covey’s fifth habit, “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood” and connects it to innovation. There are great ideas in this piece to think about heading into a new school year.

• I tend to seek out Trevor Muir’s videos when I am in transition (usually at the beginning or the end of a school year). Muir always seems to say just what I need to hear. In this video, Muir reminds me that there are parts of teaching that can only be learned from veteran teachers. Thanks for the affirmation, Trevor!

• Whenever I am in need of a good laugh, I turn to Bored Teachers. Their videos about teaching, teachers, parents, and students are always on point. This video series (Part 2 and Part 3) is hilarious! I fit between a Gen X and Millennial teacher, which makes sense as I am an Elder Millennial (or Xennial/Oregon Trail Generation, depending on your preference).

• If you want more levity before the school year starts, check out First-Year vs Veteran Teachers: Going Back to School.