I made the decision to become a teacher in 1990, when I was in the Army. I came away
from my military experience with a profound certainty that there were too many stupid
people in the world and that many of them were heavily armed. My country needed me.
So, as soon as I left the service, I went back to school to get certified to teach. I enrolled in
a post-baccalaureate teacher certification program at Keene State College and spent the
next two years getting accredited. I hit the streets in 1992 with my still-warm teacher's
certificate only to discover that there were no jobs. This was at the height of New
England's back-to-basics, "we've-got-to-cut-all-this-fat-out-of-our-schools" budget-slashing
movement and teaching jobs were scarce. In my particular discipline - Secondary Social
Studies - there were anywhere from 100-250 applicants for every opening. I wasn't
worried though; I knew that I was head and shoulders above the other candidates and I
decided to be choosy. I promised myself that I wouldn't take just any old position that was
offered to me; I'd wait for the right one.
After two years of substitute teaching, I was ready to take any teaching job, anywhere, for
any salary.
I ended up in Africa. After answering an advertisement in the Boston Globe, I found
myself teaching at a private school just outside of Nairobi, Kenya for two years. I didn't
have any maps, text books or even a chalkboard, but this was great, in-the-trenches training
that made me a much better teacher. As an unexpected side benefit, I helped provide work
for the local thugs, thieves and muggers who hadn't had a good workout in years.
Upon coming back to the States, I found that my teaching certification had lapsed while I
was overseas. In a recent move to mollify irate taxpayers, the state of New Hampshire had
decided to crack down on its teachers and raise the standards needed for certification. The
phrase "teachers" does not apply to ACTUAL teachers of course - they belong to a union
and it would be unwise to make their lives any more complicated than they are already, so
the State had decided on a compromise measure - one which would make it difficult for
any but the best and most thoroughly documented of UNEMPLOYED teachers to renew
their certification. In the end, it took me roughly a year to complete the requirements to
do so, during which time I fell into the lucrative and prestigious world of freelance writing
while I bided my time and plotted my return to Education.
I mention all this because it is important to understand the depths of my frustration when
school selection committees look at my resume, purse their lips and say something like,
"Gee, it seems as if you've jumped around a lot..."
Thus, the cow mask.
In a "when-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade" type attempt to turn my liabilities into
assets, I've decided to play UP my diverse, eclectic background and I've brought a tool to
help me demonstrate that I'm the exciting, cosmopolitan, dynamic Social Studies teacher
that they've been looking for. It is standard practice to have anywhere from 2-12 people sit
in on an interview with a prospective teacher - it is the school administration's way of
showing that they take the process seriously. Not the candidates, mind you, but the
process. They want to be able to report to the school board or the PTA or the Town
Meeting that they have scoured the ends of the earth to find the best new teachers for the
school. Today's interview has ten people around the table - in addition to myself and the
principal of the school, there are four teachers, my prospective department head, a
schoolboard-member, a parent and some guy in the corner who I never AM able to
identify. With an group this large, this is less an interview than an audition and I'm glad
I've brought a prop.
I'm pulling out the cow mask in response to a seemingly innocuous question - "So Mr.
Fladd, could you talk to us a little bit about what your classroom would look like?"
This is a trick question.
When a hiring committee asks you to describe your classroom, they do NOT want to know
what it will look like - how the desks will be placed and what materials will be on the walls,
and that sort of thing. They want to know your views on curriculum development. They
want to know how you'll go about teaching lessons and what methods you'll employ to
engage the attention and interest of your students. I went through at least six interviews,
drawing diagrams of classroom layouts and describing furniture placement in elaborate
detail before I realized this.
Teachers and administrators are social animals. They want to know if you are one of them
- if you have the same kind of background and outlook that they do. To this end, they
throw around a lot of technical terms and code words - terms like "pedagogy", "rubric"
and references to Title 9. (After some experimentation, I have learned that I will greatly
improve my reception if I throw phrases like, "multiple intelligences" and "paradigm" into
my pitch.) Another code phrase - and one you DON'T want to hear - is "Well, we'd like to
thank you for driving all the way out here..." This is code for, "How fast can you drive
back?"
So this time, when they ask what my 6th grade classroom would look like, I'm ready for
them. With mask in hand, I explain that I'm a firm believer in the theory of multiple
intelligences and that I like to address as many different learning styles as possible. I
explain how I'd use the mask as a starting-off place for a unit on Africa. We'd do a lot of
hands-on research, looking into what the role of cows are in society there, for instance -
perhaps exchanging letters or e-mails with students in Nigeria, integrating lessons in
language, writing, science, geography, history and even math and economics into the
project. This would set up a paradigm that would allow students to express themselves and
work at their own ability level, while still keeping pace with the rest of the class.
I can tell that the teachers are eating this up. (They should - it's sincere.) They are smiling
and shooting looks back and forth as if to say, "Hey, we should try that in OUR class!" I
explain how my eclectic background makes me ideal for this kind of teaching, that I'd bring
a lifetime of bizarre and potentially useful experiences to the table. The teachers nod and
grin even more.
Then I turn to where the administrators and schoolboard people are sitting. The mood is
much less exuberant on that side of the table. It would be overstating the case to say that
they are actively hostile, but their manner is distinctly formal and reserved as they continue
to ask me questions. (I later surmise that there is some sort of political dynamic in play
around the table of which I am unaware. There must be some sort of dispute or hard
feelings between the teachers and the administrators and to please either camp in a situation
such as this is to alienate the other. A no-win situation.)
From then on, the interview becomes more and more like a bad blind date, full of awkward
pauses, panicked retreats into safe topics and - at least on my part - fidgeting. When they
ask me if I have any questions for THEM, my mind goes completely blank and I can hear
an ominous whistling sound in the background as I start to crash and burn. I ask what I
hope is an inoffensive question regarding the schools test scores and am relieved when I am
dismissed.
The principal stands up and shakes my hand as she sees me to the door. "Well," she says,
smiling, "we'd like to thank you for driving all the way down here today."
© 2000 Hippo Press
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