Interview Tips for Teachers

Towards the end of last semester, the education club at my school organized a "Principals' Panel." I knew I wanted to go to this, but didn't really know what it was about: the poster just said "three area principals will be visiting; dress professionally!" Anyways, turns out it was good that I went: it was essentially a panel about interviewing tips, straight from the source. I took away a ton of advice from this event; here's Part 1 of my notes - focusing on what characteristics employers are looking for in prospective teachers.

Question: What qualities are you looking for in candidates?
- someone I can work with (i.e. get along with as a co-worker)
- speaks articulately
- really knows him or herself as a teacher
- I can have a working relationship with
- can grow
- is flexible, agreeable
- bright, articulate
- has command of content
        - has a specialty in content area
        - has the content of pedagogy; e.g. knows how people learn, how to design effective lessons
- passion, fire for the work
- strong belief in the power of public education
- an ability to design questions
- a willingness to learn
- "matches" or fits with the team
- ability to communicate orally and in written format
- acceptance: is willing to accept others for who they are
- congruence: means what they say, is able to prove they've done what they say they have (this was mentioned particularly regarding the interview setting, when some candidates are apt to embellish)
- empathy

Qualities especially emphasized were: flexibility, articulateness, agreeableness (able to work with the team), and content knowledge. I think it's interesting that these are not just education-focused - I believe these are all qualities that any interviewer in any industry will be seeking.

Installment #2 coming soon! Stay tuned :)

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Baby Talk

In one of my classes last week, one of the activities the professor had us do felt incredibly silly. She brought in some of her grandchildren's stuffed animals. Basically we had to pretend our little teddy bear was a baby, and that you were either the mother or father, and were teaching it how to speak.

This felt ridiculous.

We were in groups, and the "father" in my group was an older gentleman who had raised two children - in short, a pro a this. I eventually started telling our baby - whom we named Petey - a story about pandas (as "Petey" was in reality a panda). We also had observers in our group - who later reported that we had isolated our child because we set him on a desk and kind of just stared at and talked to him. Hello! Petey was a stuffed animal!

So, that was my evening. Well, part of it. The class is about how we use language to create meaning. Basically the lesson was that you can't "teach" children how to speak - they acquire language through need and development. We don't sit our kids down and try to teach them in formal lessons. Doesn't really work on stuffed animals, either. :)

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Don't think. Write.

I had my first meeting with my English methods class tonight [Um... last week]. This semester is looking to be a lot of free writing/journaling. Nice, but kind of new for me - believe it or not. My prof had us write "where I'm from" poems, after looking at some models. I had a tough time figuring out stuff that I would want to share as my introduction to the class, and yet still write something that actually sounded poem-like. The professor asked for some feedback on the experience after we had written and shared our poems. Most people shared comments like "this is great," "great way to get kids to share about themselves," all happy stuff about how nice this was. And I don't disagree, I really don't. But I did find the experience challenging. I shared my thoughts on how it was kind of an intimidating experience.

The professor had some good advice -- "Don't think. Write." I like that. But it's also hard, and I think the experience of understanding how this type of exercise can really be challenging is good to have in mind when asking students to do the same. We also talked about a bunch of strategies and other ways of approaching student writing in the classroom, including addressing confidentiality and creating trust. But I really want to remember those words of advice -- tempered with the personal challenge of feeling vulnerable in classroom writing and sharing.

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