I Got A Job!

I got a job! Yeah!!! As you can tell, I am very excited. I have been trying to balance my student teaching and my other 4 jobs while searching for a full time job next fall. It has been stressful and physically and emotionally draining. Now, I can stop stressing.

Although I won't name the school on this "public" blog that no one other than the person who normally responds to my blogs reads, I will describe it. It is a charter school (yeah!) in SF. It has about 450 students enrolled; students seem to very diverse. If you know me at all, you know that I am passionate about youth empowerment and social justice -- things that this school is also committed to. The stafff seem great and very self-critical in their approach to education. I am very excited to work there.

Interviewing for this job, and others was nerve wracking. After the initial interview, I was invited to do a model lesson in front of a group of students. This was very intimidating. I get nervous when my University Supervisor comes out to observe and evaluate. It's even worse when it is a strange group of students, their normal teacher, and the principal of the school.

The teacher asked me to do a background lesson on the Vietnam War. Students were midway through a book on the war but had learned little about the war outside of the book. I was excited to do it, but also scared bc I had never studied the war. I was able to talk to the teacher in person and ask her questions about the class. I asked her how many students were in the class, whether students attended regularly, whether students worked well in groups, whether students liked to talk in class. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss these issues, because in my student teaching experience, a great lesson can go terribly wrong if it is not the right lesson for the class.

I did some library research and spent way too much time planning the lesson. But since this was for a job, I figured it made sense to go all out. I turned the classroom into a Vietnam War museum. I had 6 exhibits: 1) African Americans and the War; 2) Guerilla Warfare; 3) the My Lai Massacre; 4) Anti-War protest; 5) Guerilla Warfare; and 6) Personal Artifacts (my father is a Vietnam War Vet). I brought in a Marvin Gaye Song, a Clip from the movie Forrest Gump, pictures, a power point slide show on the massacre, letters, poetry, facts, and some of my dad's old war stuff. It turned out to be a great lesson. Students were really engaged, and said that they learned a lot. I was very pleased. I walked away feeling that even though I spent way too much time on this lesson, it might be good to spend way too much time on a lesson every now and again. Students really liked it. It was interactive, multi-media, appealed to different learning styles, and out of the box. (I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I'm proud of it). Seeing their reaction and their reflections showed me that the time spent was well worth it. I even had fun creating the lesson and learning about a war I knew virtually nothing about.

My other model teaching lesson at the other school was horrible. It was an example of a good lesson gone bad because it was not right for the class dynamics. Although to my credit, I knew nothing about the classroom dynamics before going in. I tried to ask the questions above, but after telling me they would get back to me with that information, I never heard back. They also scheduled the interview the day before, so I had less time to prepare. Since I had no idea what they were learning before the day of my interview, my lesson was also a random lesson. In sum, the lesson was painful. I wanted to disappear. I left,however, knowing that I did not want to work at that school because I felt they (the principal and the teacher) were inconsiderate and lacked good communication skills.

I am happy that I do not have to do anymore model lessons in front of complete strangers.