I think your older colleague was cracked.
Any time I've taught others less skilled or knowledgeable than I, I've learned quite a bit. Not because they were "street-smart kids who broke down my walls and let me see the world through their eyes" or because "I taught them Shakespeare and they taught me JayZ" but because I had to figure out how to teach them something I already knew.
Almost every new way I have to devise to explain a concept (and sometimes these are pretty simple concepts and thick-headed pupils) makes that concept clearer to me. It's not that the students know something useful that I don't; it's that I need to learn a new facet or explore an uncharted avenue in order to teach them.
Interestingly, the thicker-headed individuals helped contribute to *my* natural misanthropy.
I would just leave his comment as a "Senior moment".
Definitely misguided; what one learns from students is not texts and secondary literature but the difficulties people have with the texts and topics who don't have forty years of having their intuitions and expectations shaped by them. As R. Porter notes, part of this is that it forces you to find a better way to get the point across than you otherwise would. Something I've also found is that students will on occasion, without any prompting, raise the same issues and (between each other in class) debates found in the secondary literature, albeit in a less sophisticated way; which, when it happens is interesting of itself, since it at least suggests that the lines of opposition in the literature at that particular point don't arise from a sophisticated understanding of the texts but from something else. That usually provides some food for thought.
I think both Brandon and R. Porter make excellent points.
When you get involved in any particular research program, it is sometimes hard to evaluate some of the basic assumptions of that program - even if you intend to! Intuitions are shaped by training and other commitments, and so things that seem intuitive might be anything but to students. Teaching, either through their questions and quizzical looks, or simply by having to explain the idea and think about how to do that effectively, helps one think about these "intuitive" foundations and whether they can support the weight sometimes placed on them. (And that's just in terms of the field!)
I was just teaching Camus yesterday in existentialism, and as we were discussing the absurd man who finds meaning in a meaningless world, one student explained the matter thusly:
"well, it's like the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic value [yes, I know this isn't technically correct, but wait 'til you see where it's going]: for example, it doesn't matter if we get an "A" in this class or a "C" because none of us are going to get a job anyway. So we may as well just get the most out of the course for our own sake and enjoy it."
21st Century existentialism? Economic nihilism? A troubling motivation to get students to stop grade chasing? Anyway, I think I learned something about where my students heads are at (shudder).
I've been struggling for nearly a quarter of a century now to unlearn most of the horseshit I was taught in my graduate training. Students are good midwives in this unlearning process.
One obvious example: philosophy graduate training encourages us to speak a language that's arcane and inbred. Teaching undergraduates demands that one drop the esotericisms. This needn't mean talking down. It does mean talking about really important topics in a language that broadens--and potentially enriches--the conversation. It means recognizing that philosophy isn't the exclusive property of (god help us) academically trained Ph.Ds.
Broadening the conversation in this way can encourage real, visceral engagement with what philosophy texts have to reveal about life. This sort of engagement, which my students have shown and reawakened in me over and over, is (I think) the beginning of wisdom. My graduate training for the most part was, with some memorable exceptions, just an apprenticeship for academic success. As one of my graduate professors once scornfully said: "'Wisdom'? The only room for wisdom in philosophy is John Wisdom. If you want the other kind, go sit on a mountaintop."
"'Wisdom'? The only room for wisdom in philosophy is John Wisdom. If you want the other kind, go sit on a mountaintop."
But that is the kind of wisdom I want...
Is there a particular mountaintop or will just any old mountaintop do?
Curmudgeon,xxxxxxxxx misguided and misanthropic...
Not to mention arrogant, short-sighted, self-absorbed...
Do students really learn from their teachers? Ultimately we all must interact with whatever stimuli we are presented with.
I learn so much from watching my cat.
Yes, one gets some first-hand (even "experiential" as that edu-wheezebag Dewey would yawp) knowledge of the sentimental blather and BS of schoolmarm-camps that student-homies were exposed to, and learns quite a bit about the depravity of American pop and schports kultur as well. One might learn to appreciate however the young coeds' taste in tats (mariposa, lower spine). 
I learn so much from watching my cat.
I would hope that my cat would learn much from watching me.
Everytime I see an "incorrect" answer on a problem set or exam, I wonder "is that really incorrect? How did the student come up with this, and might that process of thought reflect some understanding?" Most often not, but sometimes I am either forced to think through why we believe what we believe or to even admit an element of insight in an incorrect answer. Needless to say, this kind of thinking makes grading a real pain in the head.
I've learned a great deal from students regarding the material we read and discuss, not to mention that I was cheating myself by not watching the HBO series 'The Wire,' and that certain types of raw hide bones are bad for my dog's digestion, and attaching the leash to a neck collar will eventually cause him to lose his eyes, so we switched to a harness. (I didn't research the last lesson. After hearing the student tell me their dog now had a glass eye was enough.)
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