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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CST... CHECK

I passed my Content Specialty Test! Woohoo! 1 down, 2 to go. :)

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"Who *writes* that??!!!"

....When Feedback Goes Awry....

Last night in one of my classes, we were all giving short presentations in pairs or small groups. As observers of the presentations, our task was to write one strength and one suggestion for improvement for each presentation. The feedback cards were anonymous, and the professor explained that these cards were for ourselves, to help us to see what we did well and what we need to work on. At the end of the class, after everyone had presented, the professor handed the cards back to each group and had us review the comments to incorporate the class feedback into a self reflection on the project, to be handed in later.

Well, as we're all reading our comments, we suddenly hear a slightly shocked "who writes that?!!!" In response to one presentation, someone had written "there was some attempt to be interesting, but overall this presentation was mind-numbingly boring."

Ok, really not nice. Our professor was pissed. This is a class full of aspiring teachers! And I have to agree. I approach this program as a professional, and sorry but that's not acceptable behavior in the workplace. Especially when an essential part of your job is to model good behavior for others.

These cards don't impact grades, and the incident just served to diminish our professor's respect - even if just a bit - for our class. She acknowledged it was just one person. But who is that person? What did he or she really gain from writing that? I think the recipient of the comment was more shocked and offended that anyone would write such a thing than she was personally insulted.

The bottom line is that feedback is so important to us, but it absolutely must be constructive. Another point our professor made about the incident was that we only found out about it because the girl said something; when we have a class full of students, we don't know that they'll say anything, and we don't know how comments like that can affect them later in the day, week, month, or in their lives. We need to be cognizant that students need to learn how to give and take feedback. And we need to practice positive, constructive feedback ourselves - which often includes saying things that do not want to be heard, but in a polite and positive way.

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Observation: Round 2

I just spent the day at the high school observing. It was a little crazy. I observed 6 different classes, 5 different teachers. It was really interesting though, and although it can feel a little awkward sometimes I definitely think I'm getting a lot out of it.

One thing I want to get better at is developing some questions beforehand to ask the teachers about. It would also be nice to have some time with two or three teachers to really get their opinions about things, but they are really really busy with grading and other things during their free time which makes it a little difficult. Another observation point - these teachers are almost always working on something, not just messing around when they have a period free.

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Motivation

Yay woohoo I get to be in "how to become a teacher" school and yes I really do love it, even when it's a pain in the butt.

I'm working on a project for my Ed Psych class - actually it's a lesson - on motivation. I chose this topic because I wanted to really get to know how to motivate students. Turns out I find myself doing a lot of thinking about my own motivation in the process.

This project is really hard because we basically get to choose whatever we want from that day's assigned readings to teach. This makes it difficult to know what exactly to go over and what we can leave for the professor. But at the same time I guess this is intentional because as a teacher you need to be able to do that on a daily basis.

After learning more about motivation I feel...hmm... I don't know, satisfied? ... to have words to put to why I left the company to become a teacher. Working at the company - I realize that I was extrinsically motivated to do it. I already realized this, but I guess I didn't realize it was a "real" psych term, and I referred to it as external reasons as opposed to internal (which is still correct; perhaps I also said intrinsic and extrinsic, I wish I knew!!). I loved the paycheck, my family was proud of me, I had the glory of the "war stories", people were impressed when I said "I work for ..." But nothing about it kept me up at night except for stress and fear. There were parts that I truly loved, and I can't emphasize enough that it was an incredibly valuable experience. But generally by 5pm I wanted to close up shop and get the hell out as quickly as possible.

Now I realize that working towards becoming a teacher is something that is completely intrinsically motivating for me. The pay is not extraordinary, my dad wanted me to stay at the company like all hell, and telling people "I'm going to be a teacher" is not very unique. But it's something I have to do. I just do. I'm interested in it, it's a job where I can help people on a daily basis, and I can seriously make a difference in the world and the field of education, a place that desperately needs change. I can envision myself working round the clock and on weekends just because it's not only a job.

I know a lot of that sounds idealistic, and may change once I really hit the real world of teaching. But I think it is important to have these feelings about my profession at all. It's something that's very internal to me, in my heart, and something I feel compelled and challenged by. I see a future for myself in doing this, and that is really important to me.

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