My Day Observing and Interviewing Young Teachers
I had the pleasure yesterday of serving on my school’s interview team for a third grade position. Five candidates, four of whom just finished their student teaching and one of whom has five years of teaching experience, competed for the job. They each taught a 15-minute lesson and answered questions for a half-hour. Here are five thoughts:
Our kids are in good hands
I’ve been on interview committees a few times before and I am always impressed by the quality of the candidates. While the data says that our “best and brightest” are going into other fields, I’m forced to take issue with their criteria. These are high-quality people who are signing up for a difficult job because they want to make a difference and help kids. With teacher strikes, social media, a Secretary of Education who’s hostile to public schools, and teacher resignation letters regularly going viral, no one goes into education today ignorant of the challenges. These people are signing up anyway. The banks can have the valedictorians; I’ll take the idealists.
It’s a limited sample size, but the young people who are becoming teachers today seem better trained than those with whom I competed almost 20 years ago. Frankly, just-out-of-college me would not compare favorably to the current just-out-college teachers-to-be, with their higher-than-mine GPAs, overseas teaching experiences, and CONTINUE READING: My Day Observing and Interviewing Young Teachers - Teacher Habits