I had previously been screened on the phone by the department chair for Social Studies, who will be going on maternity leave, and whom whoever is hired would replace her for the rest of the year.
The visit was supposed to be Tuesday, but she fell ill the night before so it got postponed to yesterday with a slightly different schedule — classes do not meet every day, one person with whom I was supposed meet had to be away from school, and two other people sat in on the same interview rather than interviewing me separately.
I was do to be there at 9:30, arrive about 10 minutes early, and the person who opened the door was an old friend.
There are four people at this school who were at the school where I taught for most of my career, although one, the assistant head, left as I was coming in, so yesterday was the first time I met him.
I did not see the head of school, who was my principal for two years, nor did I see the woman who directs the extended day and several other programs, and who worked in the library for a number of years while I taught at the school.
The person who was the head of security, the first this school has had, opened the door. He was the school resource officer when I arrive at the school where we both worked, and turned down promotions (he was a corporal) until shortly before his daughter graduated — a sergeant normally could not hold the school resource position. He took his promotion several months before she graduated and was allowed to finish that school year, then quickly rose to the rank of Captain before he retired and came to this independent school.
But it is more than that — he has one child, a daughter, whom I taught as a freshman. That year, we had one day where students took over the classes and administration for the day. She then decided she would like to try to teach my classes for a day, so she and I worked out her planning, including homework which I made her grade. She enjoyed the experience so much she decided she wanted to become a teacher, albeit English rather than Social Studies. I wrote her principle recommendation for college, and when she applied for the education program to begin her teacher training I wrote her recommendation for that as well. I was one of two of her teachers for her high school career invited to her graduation party.
He and I chatted, and as it happened the assistant head of school was there as well, so he and I talked informally.
I then went with the Assistant Principal, who is head of academics, for about half an hour, for a very productive interview. Then I was taken to meet with the woman who directs the academic support system, with whom I talked for about another 30 minutes. As it happens even thought this is a prestigious independent school, it has a fair number of students with various learning disabilities and other issues that must be taken into account in teaching them. As it happens, I have taught a fair number of students identified as special education, sometimes mainstreamed, sometimes co-teaching in a multilevel class with a special education teacher. The last time I did the latter was 2nd semester of 2015-16.
Those two interviews went very well. I was then taken to the principal’s office where I met with him and the assistant head of school. There were two issues. The first was how frequently I have changed jobs since I “retired” from the school at which I taught for 13 years. It may seem strange for a school that is interviewing for a position that will only last for around 3 months to be concerned about it, but they are very thorough. I gave a very detailed answer, accounting for each position, and answered some additional questions. I do not think that will be an issue.
Something else could be. They are very well aware of how visible I am here and elsewhere. They also know that when I taught at my old school I made no attempt to hide my political persuasions or positions on issues, because I was so easy to find online. My former principal was not always comfortable with that, but knew that I did not push my positions on students.
But we are in unusual times, and as a result of this election cycle, some months ago the mandate came down — and i would suppose possibly from the Board as well as the administration — that teachers were not to discuss their political views either from a standpoint on affiliation, candidate support or opposition, or issues. Given that I would be teaching government classes, I was asked point blank if I could do that.
I pointed out that although I am very much of a liberal, my classroom was a safe place for students who were conservative in school that also tended liberal. I discussed how I encouraged students to learn to express and challenge ideas without challenging the integrity of the person. They acknowledged that students were likely to find out my positions online and wanted to know what I would do if they raised concerns about what they had found. My answer was that I had no trouble not discussing it in class, but wondered what if a student came to me personally and wanted to discuss. I said I would need some guidance, because to refuse to discuss with the student privately might undercut the trust that is necessary between teacher and student. If I am not offered the job, I suspect this will be the reason.
I then taught the lesson, being observed by the teacher I would replace and the director of academics. It did not go smoothly, because it took a while to get a sens of the class and the students, to make the necessary adjustments. I had one student who wanted to answer every question. I had another who wanted to look at his computer rather than watch the selections of video (each 5 minutes or less) that were part of the lesson. Of the 18 students, there were 6 whom I could not get to speak during the minutes of class.
I also came in with more material than I was going to be able to cover, in part because I did not know how much background they had.
I was able to adjust on the fly, and for the final 25-30 minutes had a decent rhythm, and was able to bring the lesson to a close. Their teacher encouraged them to thank me and there was some mild applause. Several students also came up to me to thank me personally.
I then went and got lunch with several of the others in the department, and we came back to the room where I had just taught, with most of the department (but not the chair) there, as they got to ask me questions. Some, about how I worked in a collaborative environment, I had already been asked several times before — this is a school where that is an essential part of how it operates, its culture. That is not a problem for me, and I could offer some examples.
In each of the interviews I was given a chance to ask questions about the school and other things. I actually had relatively few about the school, because I had spent several hours reading what was on its website. That also provide some connections between me and some of the people with whom I met. For example, the department chair had taught at a Quaker school where she had overlapped with one of my college classmates, as I noted in my last post. Turns out the woman who will acting chair while the chair is out has a doctorate in American Studies from the same university where my wife got hers, and in fact they overlapped for a number of years, although they do not personally know one another. She commented on my writing, specifically on the piece I did for Academe that when Valerie Strauss crossposted at her Washington Post blog went absolutely viral. There was some discussion about how I would handle writing while teaching, and I pointed out that I expected that were I offered the position I would cut back on other activities because my responsibilities for my students always came first. One of the other department members is married to a woman who teaches English and advises the Yearbook at my old school, and yes, I know her as well.
My final interview was with the department chair. She pointed out that she did not need to ask me many of the usual questions because we had covered them thoroughly in our phone conversation. She did ask me how I thought the lesson had gone, and I pointed out where I could have done things differently, and that I thought one of the problems was not really knowing the students yet. We discussed the need for accommodations — I think as I recall she said there were 6 of the 18 students who got some kind of accommodation. I identified 4 to her, and she acknowledge the observations I made about them, and about several other students, were on target.
I was the first person to go through this process. My sense is that there are least two more, who either tomorrow or sometime next week will also be thoroughly screened. So we will see.
I did not knock it out of the box. There are concerns with my other activities, and how what I have already written might play out in the community, including among parents with different political persuasions.
But I did a more than competent job, and it is possible, although not knowing the competition I cannot say probable, that they will offer me the position, and if I have not already committed elsewhere I will take it.
Meanwhile, we are also in the midst of trying to refinance our mortgage, and we will have the appraisal one week from today, at 10 AM. I have spent a good chunk of the day getting rid of stuff, cleaning, etc. I have already given away clothing to GoodWill and 5 cartons/bags of Jewish books, some very expensive, to a local synagogue. I have organize the area around the stereo so it is clean and there are not CDs strewn everywhere. I have actually managed to clear about half the counter space in the kitchen. Tonight I still have atleast 2-3 hours of additional work to do.
If the house appraises at what our mortgage banker thinks is might, we will have a deal that means we will wipe out all our other debt and put it on the house, saving a significant amount of money on cash flow out. If it comes in at less, we still will be able to go to 100% of appraised value and still significantly cut down on the cash flow out. There is also the vague possibility it could appraise at more than we need, and we could in the future take out a 2nd on the additional equity were that necessary.
So I have been busy, with little time for blogging, watching political shows on tv, even reading as much as I might like although I have managed to stay reasonably current with the important happenings around — living in the immediate DC area this is also our local news.
Now I have to get back to getting the house ready.
peace.