First Interview reflection

I had my first teaching job interview yesterday (I guess it officially qualifies as "yesterday" now...yes, I'm up at 2 AM thinking about it). All things considered, I thought it went well. It may not have gone well enough for me to get the same-afternoon followup call for a second interview though.

So, here are my thoughts on where I fell short and what I could have done better:
The assistant principal asked me to talk about my greatest strength (at least, I think she said "strength" and not "strengths"). I said dedication and elaborated that I work really hard to make sure I have everything just right. I also mentioned content knowledge and research skills...I am very strong at finding resources to complement my lessons. In retrospect, I should have talked about my ability to differentiate learning, my ability to engage the students, my ability to bring history to life, and my consistency when it comes to aligning content to standards. As for my weakness, it is classroom management. Not that I'm bad at it, but it is something that I will work actively to master as I go. She asked specifically about my student teaching experience, though, which is not entirely reflective of the "real world"...classroom management is much easier when it is entirely YOUR class and the students know it. As a student teacher, it was as much my class as I could make it, but there was still that sense, on the students' part, that I was not really the highest power in the classroom. I think I did fine with explaining the social aspect of middle schoolers and how, while I was by no means an ineffective classroom manager, I am aware that I could have done better and that it is a skill I will continue to hone as time goes by.

As for the "typical day," I think that I would have done better if I stepped back for a moment and came up with a timeline approach to a "typical" day (is there ever really a "typical" day?). She asked me what activities I did during student teaching. I mentioned art, poetry, discussion, worksheets when absolutely relevant, and of course lecture-discussion. I totally forgot to mention group work. Here's what I probably should have said: When the students come in, they would sit down and complete their bell ringer. After that, I would ask a couple of questions about the previous class, then we would begin our PowerPoint. A typical PowerPoint would contain images to analyze and discuss and, depending on the subject matter, brief video clips, music, or other primary source documents. In my lesson on early China I had a discussion of Buddhism, which I supplemented with a fun interactive website on Zen Buddhism...we had a mini-meditation session at the end of class! Time permitting, I would also include an exit slip in which the students wrote notes on what they wanted to know more about, what they liked (or disliked) the most, or what they needed more clarification about.

When it was my turn to ask questions, one of them concerned the school's policy on outside resources. The assistant principal told me that the school has a curriculum specialist responsible for clearing videos and other materials for classroom use. I hope that when I talked about videos she didn't think I meant movies...I need to make sure I am perfectly clear on that. I did emphasize that they would be related to the content being covered. I also said that I will be bringing a lot of books with me because I have been collecting books related to everything I might be teaching.

It was kind of an embarrassing question to ask, but I didn't know what position I was interviewing for, so I told her that I heard second-hand that the posting was for a seventh grade job and was wondering what grade this particular job was. She said eighth. I told her "that works...my middle school student teaching assignment was eighth grade." Still, I hated asking...I didn't know though! When the principal emailed me he only said that a job had been vacated, not which job.

A question I wish I had asked: what kind of support do you provide for teachers with special needs students? When I was at HCMS, I had one period with five IEP students and no assistance. I was in contact with the special ed teacher outside of the classroom, but only because one particular student's mother was afraid that I wasn't going to accommodate (she assumed incorrectly that because I was a student teacher, I wasn't going to meet her son's needs. The special ed teacher knew perfectly well how well I was accommodating and was impressed by my ability to do so). I thought about asking about special ed during that segment of the interview, but I kind of shied away from it. It's like knowing some Spanish. Yes, I have a fair working knowledge of Spanish, but I don't generally admit that to Spanish-speaking people because they tend to assume that my good accent and vaguely Hispanic looks means that I can hold a rapid-fire conversation. I am reluctant to admit that I am good with special needs students because I'm afraid that if I do, I'm going to get stuck in all inclusion, all the time, and that is not what I want.

It would be great if I got a call tomorrow, but if I don't, at least I had the learning experience of an interview. I just hate that my first learning experience came this late in the game!