Another Interview!!!

Well, this new cover letter I've been using seems to do the trick. I applied for another long term sub jub and heard back to schedule an interview.

I have a lot going for me for this one. First of all, it's in a grade I have a lot of experience in. Also, it is at a school district where I sub already so I'm familiar with the classroom management styles and the way the school runs. And finally, the school district uses a math program, Every Day Mathematics, that I have experience in using. So I went into the interview pretty confident.

I had the interview yesterday. It was kind of intense. They had six people in there interviewing me. They apparently are having an adminstration class and the students had to particiapte in an interview. I wasn't expecting so many questions about how I would assess things...I was expecting this like, "Why do you want to be a teacher?" or "What would you do if...." or other questions about classroom mangagement and questions about my background. But there weren't so many of those kinds of questions...a lot of ones about what kind of different teaching strategies I would use.

Also, even though I have experience using the everyday math program, the teacher I'd be taking over for (who, incidently, was one of the people interviewing me) is the language arts teacher. I didn't have as much experience in language arts as I did with math, but I think I did okay thinking on my feet.

Not so sure about how this will go. I didn't feel horrible about it like I did with the other one (which by the way, I didn't get), but I don't have that feeling of "Definitely aced that!" either....so I dunno...we'll have to see.

But these last couple interviews got me really fired up about my education. So much time was wasted on these stupid student work samples and electronic portfolios. No one has been the slightest bit interested in reading any of it. I brought my student work sample from student teaching to both of the interviews, but they said it wasn't necessary. What was the point of doing it then? I wish they would have spent more time on interview tips and etiquette which would actually have been useful. We could have had a whole class on job searching where we could have learned what should and shouldn't go into a cover letter, what interviewers are look for, but more importantly PRACTICE interviewing. They should definitely consider making that change at IUP. Maybe I should write a letter.