Retired Teachers Reflect on Learning from Experience

An attempt to clarify how learning from experience takes place and the role memory plays in the process was carried out in the frame of a study of retired teachers' accounts of their teaching, focusing on their views on the transformation of experience into professional wisdom. Forty-three retired teachers participated in the study and were asked to talk about their professional memories. The stimulus question was: 'What can you tell me about recollected events of your teaching practice?'. Further data was collected through lengthy and repeated interviews with 15 teachers. In the interviews, retired teachers were asked what the role of experience was in the development of their professional knowledge. They focused on the necessary conditions for learning from experience, as well as on the process itself. Among the necessary conditions for learning from experience, teachers in the present study mentioned time, maturity, and interaction with others. The following characteristics of the learning process were identified: the importance of narratives; the emotional aspects of learning from experience; and the role of disequilibrium and reframing. Teachers' recollections concerning their practice and insights about learning from experience represent cases of practice that can be analyzed and discussed in pre-service and in-service courses. They serve to create a sense of professional identity and continuity.