“Don’t focus your energies on the top third. They’ll be successful… they’ll get it in spite…” — Mr. Hill
I guess I’m thankful that I’ve got one class full of students in the top third. All students deserve an education… even those who are the most intelligent. I’d go so far as to say especially.
I suppose I forgot to note that a new principal was hired late in the spring, shortly after my contract was approved. Mr. Hill is only a year or so older than me, and I’m only 28. His wife graduated high school the same year as me. Two thoughts:
1. What am I doing with my life???
2. We’ll see.
As I write, I’m sitting at the first faculty meeting of the year. Last week, I had an opportunity to meet some of my co-workers and move a few things into my room. I don’t know what to think at this point. I got to school right on time, went down to the meeting room… and every table was full, so I’m kind of sitting at my own table, which is fine, I suppose, because no one can see that I’m blogging when I probably should be paying attention.
Now, everyone has to stand up…. wtf?
About 5-10 minutes later: Alright, I’m able to sit down now. While I was up, we had to get into groups depending on how long we’d been at the school, whether we coach or not, etc. Then, the principal said something to each group. To our group, “New people: You bring fresh energy and a new way of doing things. We need that.” Wow… Thanks. I feel so energized now! =/
So, now, we’ve had an introduction to the principal’s family via PowerPoint, watched some BS inspirational video, got in our stand-up groups, and now we’re listening to some sort of military analogy. I don’t know what to think of this guy. I suppose we’ll see how well he can run a school soon enough.
This story has been going on long enough… but at least I’ve got a blog name for this guy: Mr. Hill.
Hopefully, when the students show up next week, I’ll be happier to be here.
With this snide remark he gave the order for the standards to be quickly pulled from the ground, and he himself leaped onto his horse. But the horse suddenly took a stumble , throwing the consul over its head. All the bystanders were terrified at this apparently dreadful omen for the start of the campaign… — Livy, 22.3 [One day before the Roman legions were annihilated at Lake Trasimene]
Those weeks between my recommendation for hire and the vote of the Board crawled by. Sure, anyone in the profession knows that once you receive a recommendation for hire - assuming that the vacancy is legitimate - makes Board approval all but certain. Nothing short of getting arrested was likely to jeopardize my chances of being issued a contract… but tell someone that who is waiting for approval and they’ll all say the same thing: it’s nothing until it’s official.
Although I had a job all but in the bag, I was still in the habit of browsing school district websites for job openings. Old habits die hard. Anytime I got bored during those weeks, I started browsing the job postings for sheer… well, no reason. What did I expect to find? It wasn’t like I would have gone to interview if I had seen something!
Suddenly, my boredom was interrupted when an unexpected posting stared me in the face:
PRINCIPAL - ONEIDA HIGH
“WTF?” I asked myself. I just about fell out of my chair. Maybe this was a typo? Maybe they meant Oneida Middle? Seriously, though, how many times do they mis-post principal jobs? So, then, what happened? Although I was pretty sure I would have heard if my recommendation was safe, I couldn’t be 100 percent sure. This was the point where my mind wandered to such ridiculous thoughts as, “What if they ran Dr. Sermon off after they caught her selling drugs to students or something?” Hey, it’s not statistically impossible!
After chasing the most far-fetched of the thoughts away, I finally broke down and e-mailed Dr. Sermon directly and asked her what had happened. About ten minutes after I sent the e-mail, I found out through a Google search that she’d taken a job in a neighboring school district as an assistant superintendent. When I heard back from her, she told me I’d do fine and I’d enjoy working at Oneida High.
I suppose the worst had not transpired, but to be honest, I was really looking forward to working for her. There’s something about that moment when someone hires you… a moment when a person in authority expresses complete confidence in you, telling you that - in their opinion - you are the best person for the job… There’s a level of understanding in that moment that makes one excited about working for someone. Instead, I will be working for someone that had never expressed that level of confidence in me… perhaps, someone who would have hired someone else. I will have to start from square one trying to convince this person that I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Later that evening, I thought of the unfortunate consul, Flaminius, and I thought about his men as they watched him fall off of his horse. To the Roman mind, such an occurrence was a dreadful omen fortelling sure disaster. From our modern viewpoint, such superstition seems so silly, but then, what makes our modern viewpoint so much better than theirs? After all, the Romans did suffer a massive defeat the following day. Whether or not one buys the superstitions of the Romans, no one likes to see their leader fall down…
…but, like the legions of Flaminius, I have no choice but to march on. Let the sunrise bring what it may.
With the job offer on the table, I did not waste any time getting started. Although my contract had yet to be approved, I could still take care of the paperwork for the AP Summer Workshop that I would have to attend in order to teach AP US History. I had sent Dr. Sermon the paperwork via e-mail, and went to go pick up the signed copy sometime during the first week of April.
The secretary handed me the paperwork and told me that Dr. Sermon wanted to speak with me. She tried to get Dr. Sermon on the walkie-talkie, but there was some sort of visiting group of dignitaries that was requiring her time at that moment. She couldn’t be found.
“No big deal,” I told the secretary, “I can come back anytime.” I left, thinking nothing of it. After all, I wouldn’t start work until August, and since that month still loomed in the distance, there was nothing that was urgent to the point that it couldn’t wait.
The following day, Dr. Sermon called to let me know that she had a slot available and was going to recommend me for hire. The recommendation was subject to Board approval, but as long as I didn’t get arrested before the Board’s next meeting, I expected to be in the clear.
I took my wife out to dinner to celebrate. It was a good night, made that much sweeter by a message on my voicemail when I got home. Yet another principal from Greenbo County had looked at my resume and was hoping to interview me the following day. I happily sent her an e-mail letting her know that I missed her call because I was out celebrating…
…because I had been offered a job.
As I drove away from the interview in Greenbo County, I knew I would have to act fast. Yet, in the midst of urgency, I had the peace of mind of knowing that one way or another, I would have a job. It was just a matter of which job. Rather than drive all the way home before acting, I drove to a friend’s house that lived nearby and used his place as my command post. I called my unofficial career counselor and got her advice on what to do next. She told me to contact Dr. Sermon ASAP and let her know about the offer and also make it clear that I wanted the job and Oneida and would gladly refuse the job offer if my job prospects at Oneida were still viable.
Since I had not heard from her since Monday morning, I did not get my hopes up about a quick response. Instead, I opened a beer and thought out loud to my friend for awhile. Of course, I still checked my e-mail complusively about every two minutes or so! That sounds crazy, but sometimes craziness pays off.
Seven minutes later, I had a response:
It is viable- Please give me until tomorrow- You are our top choice- I
am just needing to be sure about my allocation-
“Topsy-turvy on the motherfucker!” I yelled in triumph. The outburst was inspired by an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, on which Larry’s house guest, Leon Black, has a job interview. Before the interview, Larry counsels Leon to “flip” the interviewer - make it about why he should want to work for the company rather than why the company should want to hire him. After the interview, Leon reported success with an outburst that all-so-perfect outburst…
I took a deep breath. I had finally reached that point where I did not need to be on pins and needles. It was the best of all possible worlds, as I had a bird in the hand and one in the bush, and the one in the bush appeared to be almost in my grasp. To imagine that two days earlier, I had been asleep on the floor in a semi-drunken stupor.
That evening, Dr. Sermon called me that evening just to touch base and make sure that I had her cell phone number. She told me she hoped to call me in the next twenty-four hours with an offer if she had a spare slot in her hiring pool. Otherwise, she would have to wait for the current occupant of the position to put her resignation in writing. Regardless, it sounded like it was all but a done deal, one way or the other.
The day after the interview passed without fanfare… the only thing to differentiate it from the day before was that I had sobered up. I felt as if the job had slipped through my fingers. After all of that effort…
…silence.
I found a job posting at a neighboring district, so I made a call. The secretary told me to e-mail a resume, but she could not guarantee an interview, as they were wall-to-wall with applicants. So much for that.
However, fortune sometimes suddenly changes her course. I was checking my e-mail the following day when I received a very curious e-mail from a middle school principal in Greenbo County:
Subject: Social Studies/Technology
Please call for an interview.
[Principal's E-Mail Signature]
My first instinct was to pay the e-mail no mind. I had no desire to go back to middle school unless I had no other choice, and with gasoline nearing $4 a gallon, the idea of driving nearly an hour every day to Greenbo County didn’t have that much appeal. However, if I didn’t manage to get the job at Oneida High, it was possible that I wouldn’t have any other options than Greenbo, where jobs were plentiful.
So, frankly, I didn’t want the job, but then, something occurred to me:
All I need is an offer.
Up to that point, I had been the one seeking… striving… desperately trying to find employment. I needed something to put on the table in order to turn that table in my favor. So, not wanting the job at all, I picked up the phone and called to arrange an interview. It was twelve noon.
“How about 2:00?” the secretary asked.
“Fine with me,” I replied. I had not even showered - cut me some slack, I was unemployed - so that gave me a little over half an hour to clean up, shave, and put on an interview suit.
I arrived early, hoping to find out something about the position that I was interviewing for before I walked into the room. I still didn’t know about the specifics of the opening when I shook hands with the principal, but that didn’t end up being an issue. He told me right off the bat that he had a technology job coming open and it was mine if I wanted it. He thought that my resume spoke for itself, which worked out great for me because I didn’t have to speak for myself too much. As it ended up, I actually was a bit interested in the job offer. The position involved staffing a lab and helping kids make toy cars. Grants pay for the coolest stuff!
However, grants come and go, and when it came down to it, I really wanted to teach history. I had also put so much effort into seeking the job at Oneida that I was not willing to give up on that yet - even when I was face-to-face with a job offer!
I told the principal that I would give him a reply within two days. While I was touring the school with the assistant principal, I let him know that I had another iron in the fire…
…and I intended to goad the flames.
“If it ain’t real, I ain’t runnin’ it!“ — Soulja Slim
The interview was scheduled early (8:30), so I woke up early, put on my new St. Paddy’s Day tie with a starched shirt and blue blazer and headed across Lake Trasimene to face the unknown. Twenty-five minutes later, I was at Oneida High about ten minutes early. I had a seat and waited my turn, keeping myself occupied with some Latin flashcards - one of my newest intellectual hobbies - until Dr. Sermon appeared at the office door.
“You’ve got on a green tie,” she noted.
“Yes ma’am,” I replied, “I bought a fresh tie for the occasion!”
I had thought that the destination would be her office, but she led me into the conference room where two other individuals were sitting, who introduced themselves as the Curriculum Coordinator and the Social Studies Department Chair. This was unexpected, though it’s a normal procedure when a principal is considering someone seriously, so I got over my surprise and got myself into the interview zone as the ladies all pulled out their pens and their standard-issue question lists.
I tried to look at the list and could make out some of the questions better than others - it can be difficult to read upside down, especially when trying to make eye contact and not panic at the same time. As the questions began, I decided to conduct myself differently during this interview than in the previous one. While the anthem for the first interview had been “Fake It,” I wanted to keep it real this time. I had been through a horrible teaching experience before and wanted to make sure that if I were hired, I would be hired by people who knew what I was about and found that to be compatible with the school’s environment.
“What do you do to make sure that you’re reaching every student,” the Curriculum Coordinator asked. This is the sort of question that can make an interviewee stumble over his words, but I was not going to fall into that trap.
“That’s not really one of my strengths,” I replied, “I’d certainly be willing to work on it and take input and constructive criticism, but I don’t want to give you a false impression of my skills as they stand now.”
I think they were taken aback, a bit, but what mattered most to me is that I was honest and that I wasn’t trudging through a mire of my own BS. Later on in the interview, Dr. Sermon asked me to rate my technology skills from 1-10.
“Ten… ten and a half… eleven?” I said in a half-joking attempt to accurately rate myself, but then I justified my arrogance, reminding the panel that I had been honest about my weaknesses and sought to be just as honest about my strengths.
The interview was going well at that point, but took a turn for the better when the department head asked me if I was interested in summer professional development. I told her that I definitely was, and had done two summer workshops with the National Endowment for the Humanities when I had been a middle school teacher. It turned out that we had done the same workshop, just in different years. We shared a few Mount Vernon stories before getting back on track. Then my speech and debate experience came up, and she asked if I’d be interested in helping with Mock Trial, which she sponsored. I told her it sounded great to me.
By this point, the atmosphere resembled more of a conversation than an interview. Things were going well. The panel went through the last few questions on the sheet… then, the interview was over. I was thanked for my time and shown the way out.
As I got into my car, I thought to myself that while I had not known what to expect, I figured that I would have some closure by the end of the morning. Instead, I was driving back across Lake Trasimene with the full day ahead of me… to wait. When I got home, I fired off three e-mails - one to each member of the panel - and got two responses: one from the Curriculum Coordinator and one from the Department Head, both encouraging but neither one being the main decision-maker. The reply that was missing was the one that I needed most, but I didn’t hear back from Dr. Sermon that day.
It was a beautiful day outside, which for a job-seeker unable to think about anything else, this translated into a beautiful day to get drunk, which is exactly what I did. By noon, I was fast asleep on the carpet… unconscious and uncertain.
The Job Fair came and went, and my next concern was to try to close the deal at Oneida High. My interview was scheduled for Monday morning, which happened to be St. Patrick’s Day, so on Friday evening, my wife and I took a little trip to the mall. I had my share of green shirts, but nothing appropriate for an interview.
We lucked out and found a table full of name brand ties for $9.99 each. One of them was a nice green tie that looked like it would go wonderfully with a navy blazer. That being taken care of, all there was to do for the weekend was to anticipate Monday morning.
At this point, I was excited about the possibilities. An acquaintance of mine who had worked for Dr. Sermon spoke very highly of her, saying that she was “a great person who works tirelessly and doesn’t ask anything of her teachers that she herself is not willing to do.” That’s a glowing recommendation if I’ve ever heard one. Education, just like most other fields, is full of supervisors that range from mediocre to downright poor… the chance to work for a good boss raised the stakes of making this second interview successful.
Since it was Spring Break, nearly all of my friends had gone home, to the beach, or on various other adventures. This gave me plenty of time to think about what to expect. I was interviewing again with a principal who had already offered me a job, so surely I could expect an offer on Monday? I was hopeful, but I tempered my hope with pessimism… no use in feeling too optimistic about the unknown!
