Well, I had the interview. I continue to go back and forth about my feelings on how it went. I felt prepared and I felt relaxed–two things that seem important in an interview atmosphere. However, there were several curve balls thrown my way. First of all, instead of interviewing with a principal one-on-one, the interview was with the principals and the “personnel committee.” This personnel committee consisted of 4 teachers from different grade levels and experiences in the school. This makes with interview a bit more daunting and confrontational.
The second curve ball was the questions asked. I feel like these questions were not the questions I was expecting. I was expecting more about my classroom management techniques, my literacy training, my experience with children, etc. etc. Instead, I feel that all the questions asked were about school district programs and not school programs. I was asked about professional development (the question wording threw me off from the intended answer), data, collaboration, etc. While I see that these issues are important in the school district, they didn’t seem to be a good measure of my abilities to teach these kids.
The third curve ball was the tough one. One of the women sitting in on the interview seemed automatically opposed to me. She commented on where I grew up in an odd way. When I answered a question by saying that I am excited to learn a lot more by teaching in Philly this summer, she simply shot me down and said that I would not learn anything useful teaching summer school. I couldn’t tell if she was simply testing my ability to deal with opposition or what. She just seemed to already not want me there. It’s not a big deal because everyone else was super nice and accepting, but it meant that I left the school with a bad taste in my mouth. I would love to work at the school, because I know that they need a lot of help and I am confident that I would be effective. However, as I left I was not confident that I had secured a position there. The personnel committee seemed to doubt teachers who come to the school through alternative programs like Teach for America. Hopefully, the principal feels that I would succeed there and that she makes the final decision. I guess we will see.
On another note, I still have a ton of the pre-institute stuff to finish, and yet I am still updating this blog. DO YOUR WORK KATE!
