When being awesome isn't good enough, be better

I just $52.50 to prove I'm STILL not a crook. I think I got ripped off. Up next are more fees to renew my TB and who knows what else. I know yesterday I was all "I'll jump the hoops" but today my bank account feels pretty empty. I'm not going to lie.

Meanwhile, I'm spending the afternoon completely revamping my resume and cover letter template. I did it at the beginning of the summer but I can't help but think maybe I could make it better.

If you had to write about one "hot" topic in education in your cover letter (e.g., differentiation, equity, management, assessment) what would you pick? Why? Or would you nix hot topics all together and give them a business cover letter that highlights what your resume does not explain/cover?

Maybe I should just say, "I think walking down the aisles at Staples is relaxing and the teacher supply store is better than Toys R Us. I want to be a teacher because I like writing on the white board and I still think I can change the world." 

The why in "why I still bother"

Having the summer off and enjoying not working makes a slippery slope down the path of "is it worth it" and "why even bother". Yesterday I started to dig deep, but realized my reason for bothering has been right at the surface all along. 

As you know, I began the hoop jumping to start subbing for a chain of charters in the inner city, c/o Big City, USA. I filled out a crazy detailed online application, showed up for an interview, wrote some essay questions on the spot, got grilled about best practices and my views of guest teaching, and got selected to join the limited guest teacher (re: sub) pool for the 8 locations k-12 in the inner city neighborhood that this particular charter serves. I paid a total of $42 to have two different official transcripts ordered and tomorrow I'll pay another $25 for a fingerprint & background check. Next week I'll attend a mandatory orientation. I don't want to talk about gas or minutes spent in traffic but at least no one can hear my singing in the car.

Why the hoops? Is it because, as it seems on the surface, that I'm so desperate for a job that I'll take anything that comes my way? Is it because I'm so pathetic I can't do any better or get hired in a "good" district?

Let me tell you why. And this is the real answer--not the interview answer, not the essay question answer, not the friendly polite dinner conversation answer. I'm not trying to be cute or coy or even, for once, awesome. It's just the truth.

It's because I think the only way to change the world is to teach our children to ask questions. 

I believe that so strongly I'm willing to put it on my sleeve or nail it to my door with a sword. So when I drove to my interview yesterday and saw graffiti on every flat surface and poverty and hunger, and saw babies with babies and teenagers with gang tattoos, I didn't think "how sad." I didn't think "welfare kids" or "I can save them!" or "they need help" or "am I safe here?". I didn't even really think about difference or privilege or agency or equity or any other hot topic that often keeps me awake at night.

I did think "I wonder if anyone is teaching these kids to ask "why" or "how".

So yes, I will jump the hoops and fight upstream with the thousands of other teachers who believe we can change the world. And if that means subbing or working part time or driving in traffic or paying for another stupid transcript or background check (I'm still not a crook!) then I will. Maybe I never will have my own classroom. Maybe I will get hired next week. Maybe I'll stop working when I have kids. I don't know right now. But right now, I sure as hell am going to keep bothering with the hoops, because kids need to be taught to ask the questions that grown ups are too afraid of.

Mrs. Awesome Subs Again

Apparently I had the right answers, or else the interview was a formality, or I'm doomed destined going to spend my life swimming in the sub pool, because I am going to be hired into the sub pool for the network of charters where I interviewed today.

Also, apparently, I hate myself, because I told them I would sub any grade, and when he found I had taken college level calculus, he wrote "math, 7-12" on my paper. Uhhh does anyone remember the panic attack I had when my spring sing was at a high school campus? I think involved lots of forcing myself to walk by rows of lockers and being convinced the teenagers were looking at me.

Well... what's done is done. For now I'll keep applying to whatever positions I can find, and plan on getting my fingerprints, etc. done before sub boot camp next Friday.

Sub pools for the great recession

How do you prepare yourself for a job interview? What if that job interview was to join the sub pool?

Would you practice getting your pulse taken? Or take it more seriously, and bring in samples of daily summaries, prepare a list of curriculum you're familiar with, and be ready to explain/discuss management issues through the lens of a guest teacher? Would you wear a suit? Prepare a sample lesson... just in case they see how incredibly awesome you are and change their mind and decide to hire you full time after all? 

All year last year when I subbed people would say "well hey you have a pulse!" but apparently having a pulse and passing a background check is no longer the minimum qualification to be a substitute teacher. In fact, most of the districts in Big City, USA will not even accept new substitute applications right now because their sub pools are full of teachers who were laid off last year.

Welcome to 2010, teachers.

I did manage to land myself a bona fide job interview... to join a sub pool for a chain of charters. I did also apply for a classroom position with the same charter but no bites there.

While I'm still actively applying for the few job postings that I can find (and thinking about seriously revamping my cover letter & resume) I'm also wondering how I'm going to continue my career. As a planner by nature, my 1, 5, and 10 year plans get changed almost weekly as my career prospects dwindle. Am I a lifer in the sub pool? Will two years post teacher ed without my own room kill my classroom teacher potential? Can I still consider pursuing my special ed credential next year?

Or will I not even get picked for the sub pool? If that happens I may as well grab my green apron and go knock on the window at Starbucks and promise not to steal too many SKVLs.

Life, differentiated

I finally have internet at my new apartment. And by finally I mean it's been three days since we got our keys. Addicted doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm hoping to get back in it to win it soon and get things like twitter up and running (my new phone should arrive soon!) and potentially update my blog to include links to all the awesome teacher blogs I've found this summer.

This move have been as much symbolic as it is physical for Dr. Awesome and me. We spent just over five years in Small Town, USA and we both earned our degrees there. We're officially moving on from being graduate students and moving on to the next part of our lives. Small Town, USA is where we got married and grew from undergrads into the people we are today (when we figure out who those people are we'll let you know.) Although neither of us particularly liked living in Small Town, USA, we felt kinda sad leaving it, as it is where our marriage began and grew and where we solidified the permanence of "us". Also it's where we decided to stop being lame and start being awesome instead.

Now we're in Big City, USA, though perhaps GIANT City is a more appropriate name. Our apartment is tiny, we're both having car troubles, I haven't had one single call for a job interview, and we have to move again next year. But I already love it here.

Right now I'm closer to my sister-in-law for one year, during the exact year that my brother is deployed. Right now we have a small apartment when our little family of two + kitties is the smallest it will ever be. Right now we have car trouble but we don't have to make car payments. Right now I'm planning on going to some amazing concerts and visit some really rad attractions because they are in my neighborhood, and I can, and because I don't have to go to work. I love the way people drive here, order coffee here, and most of all I love that Dr. Awesome is here with me.

Is this my life, differentiated?

Getting over myself.

Thank you so much for all the encouragement! Between my blog readers (and stalkers) and real life friends and family, I had a lot of support yesterday as I whined my way through the day bemoaning my terrible chances of finding a classroom job this year.

Today though I'm back to feeling awesome. Thank goodness because no one likes (or hires) a complainer. I may be one in a thousand trying for the job, but that also means I was one of a thousand who had my hopes dashed to pieces yesterday when I opened my email to see how slim my chances really were. Right now I'm grateful to be able to continue pursuing a teaching career, even if that means sticking it out in the subpool for another year.

Now I'm ready for more traveling, more summer, and more family time. And I guess I have to stop procrastinating packing for our big move...

0.5% chance of becoming a real bone fide teacher!

A half of a percent. That's the chance I have. Thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of tears, one hundred quarter units in twelve months from a top fifty education graduate school, one year of keeping my head above water in a sub pool/contract teaching, and now I have earned myself the chance to roll the dice on a HALF of a percent chance at a job.

Today I received an email from a district I applied to, stating that I was "one of over 1,000 applicants for five positions". Let's be generous and forget to read that little word "over" and estimate that there are 1,000 people vying for five positions. Straight up that's half a percent chance if we're looking at name drawings out of a hat.

If it were me, and thank goodness it's not, I wouldn't pick me. I'd pick someone with a couple of years experience but no tenure to transfer over. That would be the cheapest way to get a teacher with some experience. What can I say? I'm a numbers person. But today, just for once, I wish I wasn't. Because then I wouldn't realize how dire 5/1000 really is.

Surving the hunt

Like many of you, I'm in over my head with my job hunt this year. There are hardly any openings so I've had to expand my hunt to include after school positions, middle school positions, and private schools that may or may not line up with my personal religious beliefs. We're all fighting to stay positive, keep searching, send in apps as soon as the jobs get posted, and tweak and re-tweak those cover letters. I keep hearing about places getting hundreds of applications for a single opening and thinking that there is just no way a district is ever going to even consider calling me for an interview, not when there are teachers out there with years of experience who can pull the "I got laid off" card. The whole thing is just rather depressing, for me and for everyone else.  And I haven't even begun to talk about the kids, who are hurt the most by the layoffs.

In the middle of all this, Dr. Awesome and I are up to our neck in boxes, as we're not far from our big move. Trying to convince myself to move several boxes of teaching supplies for a "someday" that may never be is getting harder and harder.

Like any normal person, I did the only thing left to do. I hit up Zappos.com and spent so much money that my credit card company called regarding abnormal activity.

That's normal, right?

My new sandals arrived today. Writing essays doesn't seem so bad now that I'm wearing PJs and my new OluKai sandals. Now that's summer.

Telling it like it is: job application essays

I'm still in the UK, still enjoying a whirlwind of sightseeing with Dr. Awesome, and still squeezing in job hunting during the long boring days while he's at work and my legs are too tired and sore to carry me through even more walking tours. I am, however, getting a little burned out from these essay questions on job applications. I thought I would share some of my brutally honest answers.

1. If you are bilingual, please state the languages you speak and proficiencies.
I speak several languages. I speak parent, principal, administrator, and coworker. In addition, I speak several forms of child, including hungry, sleepy, frustrated, and whiny. All fluent. I also am moderately proficient at teenager, urban foo, and valley girl.

2. Why do you want to work for ___School?
You're one of three accepting applications right now. 

3. As an educator, how do you use assessments to inform your teaching?
I use every lesson to prepare the kids for the state test. Then I get my state test scores back, fear for my job and salary, can't make a difference because my kids that took the test are already in a new grade, and try again with a metaphorical whip on my back and new kids. 

4. How as collaboration impacted your performance?
Mrs. Next Door tells me how I do everything wrong. Mr. Next Door tells me how Mrs. Next Door is getting divorced. Ms. Down the Hall helps me with my weekly block plan and I help her with math and science prep. All four of us tell the principal we are a united grade level team. 

5. Please describe the management system in your classroom and give an example. 
I take away recess. Example: Kid is a terd. I take away recess. Kid is less of of terd. 

I just wanted to you to know...

While I could be outside with Dr. Awesome, looking at sites like this....

or this....

or this....

I am not. Instead I am inside, in a library, in between stacks huddled by a plug with my UK-US adapter, working diligently on job applications that should have been finished a month ago. Oh wait, there weren't any openings a month ago.

Dr. Awesome and I are indeed having a fabulous trip though. Last weekend we cruised through all kinds of amazing things! This week while he works and I job hunt, I have managed to sneak in a few extra cups of coffee and read a bit more of my summer reading list. It is, after all, summer vacation. Our next weekend will bring us more adventure though, and more blog hiatus!

I do have to wonder though... will I ever get to have a summer vacation that isn't spend with that nagging worry of "what next?" Or are all new educators doomed to years of pink slips and reapplications? If I had my own room, my own grade, surely I would be taking pictures to share with my kids. It is a someday well worth the pursuit.

Hunting Season: Now Open

All the pieces have finally fallen into place. Mr. Awesome accepted a position in Big Giant City, USA and so I know where to apply for jobs now. And as of yesterday evening, I finally got all the letters of rec I was waiting for, so it's official. I am officially on the market. Looking. Available. Unemployed.

In between jobs.

Starting today, I'm spending a bit of each day working on my job applications. I need to revamp my resume (should have already done that, but as you know, I am really good at procrastinating) and I need to get my shell cover letter set. However, the biggest obstacle is simply going to be finding a place to send my apps. Right now there are several districts that simply have information on collecting unemployment. Others are only accepting applications from current employees. Others want you to have years of experience. I wonder if any of them are looking for me?

Here's my first cover letter:

Dear peeps:
Please call me for an interview. I'm awesome. w00t. 
Love,
Mrs. Awesome. 

I think it needs some work.