“Experience Rich, Theory Poor,” or What I Learned in Returning to Graduate School

I heard the phrase “experience rich, theory poor” on a podcast interview between New Yorker editor David Remnick and writer Malcolm Gladwell. The phrase immediately triggered memories of my returning to graduate school at Stanford University in the early 1970s after spending 16 years as first a high school history teacher in Cleveland (OH) and then as a teacher and administrator in the Washington, D.C. schools. That phrase captured my thoughts about the courses I took the first year on organizational theory, the politics of education, and the history of education. From my experience in teaching history to mostly Black high school students in Cleveland and the District of Columbia, I knew chapter and verse of how classrooms operated, what happened in schools on a daily basis, and the strengths and weaknesses of admired and trusted colleagues. I had accumulated rich experiences in running a school-based teacher education program and then a district-wide staff development program. If my…