For this weeks seminar, we were joined by two extremely informative guests, both in hiring positions at their respective schools and districts. While I am still a ways out from the interviewing stage, I guess it’s never to early to begin thinking about it!
What I gained most from the speakers was the specific questions. There are a million possibilities for what an interviewer might ask, so it was nice to have them refine that list down and explain why certain questions are asked. For instance, I had never thought about or understood why “icebreaker” type questions were helpful for anything but breaking the ice. It makes complete sense now that the interviewer is gaining important information from can this person think creatively and out of the box, to are they really listening to the question I am asking.
The interview process is an intimidating one, but hearing from these two women I can see it as more of a personal process. This is not only about a school finding the right teacher just to fill a classroom, but about making sure that a teacher is in the right school. The speakers spent a lot of time discussing researching a school before the interview and preparing plenty of your own questions, and it made me think about how an interview should not be this scary “Will they choose me?” type of experience, but instead asking yourself “Is this the right school for me to become the teacher I want to be?”