Additional Thoughts - Pad that Resume!

Ok, it's not really padding your resume, but supplement and build onto it. My journey to my new job really started almost a year ago when I took an additional certification exam. I was Social Studies Composite, but many Social Studies positions are associated with coaching. If you don't coach, you will not be at the top of anyone's hire first list. This is especially true of S.S. teachers. Look at any school's staff and you will see that the history or geography teacher is also a coach. Have you ever known a head football coach who taught French? No, I didn't think so. I decided to look at another certification that I would be able to teach and pass the certification exam as well. I also considered teaching positions where there was a shortage of teachers, not a surplus. I choose "Technology Education" because it fit the bill perfectly.

Two months into the school year and I am getting e-mails inquiring if I was still available for a tech ed position. No sorry, your too late, I'm hired and happy.

How I Got My New Teaching Job Part V - Conclusion

Friday PM (2 weeks later): We get home late Friday evening after a long drive from Amarillo. I'm looking forward to picking up the mail from the Post Office Saturday morning where it's been on hold for almost 2 weeks.

Saturday AM: I pick up the mail from the P.O. and look for the contact letter among all the other bills. Yup, there it is. I decide to wait to get back to the house before opening it.
I open the envelop and there it is just as I thought it would be. Teacher contracts in Texas are just one legal sized page long but in fine print. Not very exciting. A sticky note is attached instructing me to return it in 2 weeks from the date, which was almost 2 weeks ago! In the fine print it states it must be signed and returned by July 7th or no deal. I'm thinking, are they kidding? What if something came up where I couldn't get this thing signed in time? I've been out of town. I decided not to put in back in the mail today, but take it over to the HR department first thing Monday and hand deliver it instead. I don't want any late deliveries from the P.O. to screw things up.

Monday AM: I drive to the admin building right after breakfast. I hand my signed contract to one of the ladies who works the front desk. She has worked there a long time. I know her name and face from when I worked as a substitute teacher 5+ years ago. She stamps it with a big RECEIVED stamp in red ink and tells me she will forward it on. Seeing that big stamp with the date on it gives me a big sigh of relief. I'm finally and officially now in. Goodbye to the insanity. After looking at my name and signature on the paper, she then looks up at me and says, "Mr. Devlin, I remember you. You have tried a long time to get hired here". I said, Yes I have". She replies, "Sometimes you just have to keep trying". I said, "Yes you do; you never know what can happen."

How I Got My New Teaching Job Part IV

Friday Morning: The school board doesn't meet for another 10 days but I'm not worried. I'm 99.9% sure my hiring will be approved. I expect my contract to be in the mail when I get back.

Sunday Morning (1 week later): Me and the family are on the road to the mountains for some sightseeing fun. I keep my cell phone on and check e-mail only every couple of days. I don't expect any more contact from HR or the new school. In the mean time, my mini-van goes belly up at Mt. Rushmore of all places and I'm only 1,600 miles from home! I limp into the town of Spearfish, SD and trade it in for another slightly used vehicle. Buying a "new" car on vacation was the last thing I expected on this trip. I get way more than I expected on my trade-in so I'm happy. When the car finance guy I asks me who my employer is I have to stop myself and remember that I am still employed with my old school district and not the new one yet (darn).

How I Got My New Teaching Job Part III

Thursday Morning: At this point if everything I've been told is true, the next contact will be from HR. In Texas, a criminal background check has to be run every time a teacher is hired by a school district. It doesn't matter if the previous district you worked for has run one on you or you have a clean record, a background check is done. The phone rings about 11 o'clock. The lady on the other end of the phone identifies herself as being with the HR department and tells me that they are sending me a letter of intent to hire if I am still interested in the position. YES, finally! I have a hard time containing my glee. I feel like I just got a "Get Out of Jail" free card. After all the crap I've put up with for the past 4 years, I've got another chance to begin again fresh. She says they are mailing it out today and all I need to do is sign it and send it back. No problem I said. Everything from here on out is just a formality. The school board has to still meet in about a week to approve personal changes for the 2008-2009 school year. Then I will receive an official contract.

Friday Afternoon: The letter of intent is in today's mail. I open it right away, sign it, put it in the return envelop and take it back out to the mailbox. Now all I have to do is wait for the teacher contract. In the mean time, its off on vacation to Mt. Rushmore and Estes Park, Colorado for two weeks. What a great way to start a summer vacation!

How I Got My New Teaching Job Part II

Monday Afternoon: After about 2 hours of waiting for the phone to ring I start feeling down because I haven't got "the call". I'm sure I'm the man for the Jr. High job. Finally at 3 o'clock the phone rings. It's "the call", I just know it. I answer it but it's not from the Jr. High but one of the department chairpersons from the High School asking me if I was available to come in for an interview on Wednesday morning. I find out there are two other people being interviewed for the position so I request the last interview time. This an old sales tactic I learned a long time ago. Get the "buyer" to not make a decision until they talk to you. Most people like to not decide until they have looked at every available possibility. That gives me the "seller" the opportunity to "ask for the order" (the job) and have a better chance of them saying yes. You overcome the objection of "we are still interviewing".

Wednesday Morning: Pressed white shirt and tie. No suite coat again. In this heat my shirt won't look pressed for long. My interview is not with the Principal, but the DC and one of the AP's. This is somewhat unusual because you usually interview with the Principal first and then if they like you, they pass you down to your DC or AP, then you get hired. This happened at this same school 3 years ago when I did NOT get hired. This time is different because its a different position and different interviewers.

It's 11 am and the interview starts off good. I know most of the interview questions already from others I've done, so I can answer quickly without putting too much thought into the questions. I don't mention anything about my previous interview and not getting the job from 2005. No negatives to spoil the moment. I do name drop a few people that they know to bring about some familiarity to the situation. Lots of smiling and good report all around. The subject of summer training comes up so I'm thinking this is going REALLY good. The DC asks me if I would like to see the classroom. Now I'm thinking, "This is going great" and I'm pumped up. I say sure (how could I not). Now I need to make the "sale". I take "possession" of the classroom by telling her not only what I can do but, exactly how I want to do it. "Paint the picture" is the old sales adage.

After about an hour it's time to leave. Too long a time could be a negative and I could wear out my welcome. On my way out the door, I do something I didn't do at my last interview. I'm thinking "ask for the order" this time. Just like getting a date, the girl might say no, but she might say yes also. I tell the DC that I had an interview for another job in the district and I will take the first position that is offered to me. In sales it's called "building urgency". She says, "You are the one I want to hire". I try not smile too big, but say, "Great, I look forward to doing a great job for you". Now I go home again and wait for "the call".

How I Got My New Teaching Job Part I

On the last day (a Friday) of the 2007-2008 school year, I told a couple of my colleagues that I was tired of waiting for something to happen concerning my teaching assignment for the next school year. Monday morning I was going to walk into a couple of schools close to my house that had open positions posted on the school district web site. I was hoping they were still current and not yet filled. The month of June is usually fast and furious for teacher hiring so I had to act fast.

It had been over 7 weeks since the district transfer fair and the school district I live had a job fair 6 weeks ago. I thought the interviews I had were pretty good and I was hopeful something would come out of it. Several follow-up phone calls and e-mails turned into empty promises. I was desperate and had to do something now! I could not go back to last years position. Seven hours a day with borderline sociopaths was enough.

Monday morning: Two schools to visit and copies of my resume ready to go, but what should I wear? This is SE Texas and the second week of June, it's already 93 degrees with 100% humidity. I'm old school and I believe you should always wear a coat, tie, and long sleeve white shirt to an interview, even if you are walking in without an appointment. I don't care what most believe about "business casual", a coat and tie mean business and I meant business. On the other hand, a suite or sport coat would seem kinda silly in this heat. I would be sweating bullets in seconds. Keep the tie, forget the coat, and partially roll up the sleeves for a "at hard work" look. An interview is a sales presentation and I am selling me. I was in sales for 10+ years before going into teaching and I was pulling out all my sales knowledge today. Time was running out and I had to "close" this sale soon.

My first stop is a Junior High school 1.3 miles from my house. I drive to the school and look to see if the Principals car is there; it is. Most schools have reserved parking spots for the administrators so you know if they are there or not. Every good salesman know that the first thing you have to do on a sales call is to make sure you speaking with the decision maker. If not, you are just wasting your time. Teachers and most other staff are gone, but Principals have to work most of the month until July. This means I have a good chance to meet her without interruption or time constraints. Walking into the building is a little strange because its big and empty with only a few people there. I walk into the front office and find a lady walking around who seems to be the receptionist. I tell her who I am and why I am there and ask her if I could speak to the Principal. She says sure and walks into another office and then comes right out and says she would be happy to talk to me. Great! So far so good. I smile a lot and try to keep the conversation going until I can move ahead. She reveals she is not the receptionist, but one of the school counselors. Good, more pluses for me. Then the Principal comes out and we have a nice exchange. I meet with her in her office for about 30 minutes. I focus the conversation on the difficulty of finding someone to teach Technology Education these days. Not many people are certified to teach it. Fortunately, I took the certification test for it last December so I'm certified. Lots of English, Social Studies, Science teachers out there, but very few Technology Ed. teachers. I've got some leverage here because she tells me the only other candidate they have lives 60 miles away. No way they will hire someone that far away, right?

I leave thinking I've got the job. Should I even go to the other school? She is going to hire me so why bother? I applied at the other school 3 years ago without luck, probably just a waste of my time. Ah crap, might as well, nothing to loose.

I drive to the other school, a high school which is 3 miles the other way from home. I am so confident that the other job is in the bag I don't even ask to speak to the Principal. I didn't want to deal with the rejection after what I thought was a great interview. Instead I take out a red Sharpie and write across my resume "Technology Education" certified. I hand it to the receptionist and say, "give this to your Principal". I walk out the door and drive home waiting for "the phone call" from the Jr. High.

No Longer Anonymous

When I, Mr. D, started this blog I started it as a way to blow off steam. I needed an outlet from all the frustration I was experiencing as a teacher at a school where the administrator's did not support the teachers, where if you were having problems managing your classroom it was your fault and your fault alone. That's why I said at the time the "inmates were running the asylum". I was accused, by my nitwit assistant principal, of going into teaching for the money until I found a better job. Their idea of discipline was putting a kid into ISS for 1 - 3 days and that was it. Some discipline program. 2/3 of the teacher's were looking elsewhere or getting out of teaching altogether. My blog was written anonymously because I didn't want any reprisals for being critical of the insanity I was living with everyday. Fortunately, after 2 years, I was able to move to another school within the district that was much better than my first school and I got a break from the insanity. The kids were not necessarily better, but at least the administrator's backed the teacher's up most of the time so the overall school environment was better.

I was no longer teaching in a regular classroom, but assigned to, for a lack of a better word, a "behaviors" class. All I had to do was sit on these kids for 7 hours a day until they finished serving their time (20+ days). No lesson plans to write, no grades to report, just keep 'em quiet and in their chairs. Full pay as a regular classroom teacher for 0-12 kids everyday. Easy right? Well, not really. It was extremely boring. Nothing to do but keep these knuckleheads in line. I had no official guidelines from the State or school district. I was making most of it up as I went along. After an incident where I was accused of not following "official" school policy a possible reprimand could be coming down. I wrote an e-mail to the administration demanding a set of official rules from the district or State. They were dead silent to my request and the issue never came up again. I was left alone for the rest of the year. I was now doing a great job! I found out later that no such rules existed. No State law existed because there wasn't one. It was a test program by the school district alone.

Kids were assigned to my class for anything from excessive tardies, cussing out a teacher or A.P. to mild gang activity. After 2 years of my time in this teacher purgatory it was time to go back to the real teaching world. Working with regular kids. A week or two before the end of the school year, I told my Principal that she needed to find me a place in a regular classroom or else I would go insane. She couldn't make me any promises because no social studies teachers had resigned yet. One teacher was supposed to transfer to another school and another was threatening not to come back the next year at all. So I had to take matters into my own hands - getting another job would be up to me and me alone. I'll save that story for my next blog entry.

Mr. Devlin is now public.

I'm coming back

I have been out of blogging for a long time (did anyone notice?) and a lot has happened to my teaching career. I will be adding a few new items over the next few days to bring everyone up to date. Yes, all 3 of you.

Big Changes

I admit, I've gotten lazy this year. Not much to say. I don't want to write unless I really need to get something off my chest. Talking about idiot teachers and administrators gets wearisome. Seriously thinking of making this blog a site for my students to access class information, etc. I'll take down most previous posts, links, etc. and replace with "education" stuff. Big change in direction, but perhaps it's time. Change is good. Kids are different today and will use the Internet to find stuff, but won't ask me in class. Go figure.

“I couldn’t take it any more”

Now here's a headline that got my attention: Principal admits throwing excrement - A suspended Toronto elementary school principal has pleaded guilty to throwing feces (excrement) on a child." Wow. This will put the fear of God in 'em!

What Adam Smith and ISS Kids Have In Common

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations is perhaps the most important book on economic theory ever written. Smith writes of the "hidden hand" that drives prices, markets, etc. Simply the "hidden hand" finds a way to drive the economy. While monitoring ISS (in-school-suspension) kids extensively this year, I have been able to observe the "hidden hand" at work with them. Even though they have to sit by themselves in a cubical all day, they will come up a rubber-band, paper clip, piece of paper, trash, or whatever to create a "toy" to amuse themselves. It's amazing; the "hidden hand" at work even in ISS. Who would have thought that junior high kids are unknowingly demonstrating a wonderful example of free market economics?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

When California voters past its "pot is ok" bill is this what they thought they were getting? No, of course not, but when you open a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences this is what you get. "a number of students have been caught on campus with medical marijuana cards." Is anybody really surprised at this? Add another headache to what what the teachers in California have to deal with. Hang in there Polski3 and Right on the Left Coast, et. al. I don't know how you do it.

Pathetic Liberal Guilt

Speaking of the 1836 Texas War for Independence, I picked up an old copy of The Social Studies Texan (Spring 2006), a teacher writes this in regards to a class field trip: "Apart from touring the U.S.S. Texas at its docking site and a 'must see' for anyone who has the opportunity, I had a very hard time at San Jacinto. Despite an admirable attempt to tone down the victory, dozens and dozens of Hispanic children obviously felt like the 'losers'." This is puke. Don't feel good because we don't want to offend anyone. We must be PC.

This is what happens when the greatness of what it means to be an American is no longer valued and is instead replaced with a multicultural agenda. The "children" should feel bad because a murderous dictator who trampled on Mexican citizens rights was defeated? The "children" should feel bad because Texas won its independence and became a part of the greatest country in the world? The "children" should feel bad because they live in a country which grants more freedom and opportunity than they can possibly ever imagine compared to the sh_t hole country most of them used to live in? Guilt ridden liberals make me sick.

But You Didn't Tell Me Why Or How

We had a in-service this week which is usually a grab bag of seminars on how to be a better teacher. A lot of teacher's hate in-services because they feel its just a waste of time. This is partially true because sometimes the presentations are boring, not relevant, or the speaker is unprepared. At worst it just makes the school year longer and another day without instruction. Up until this week I've had pretty good luck with the presentations that I have gone to during in-services. This time the morning session did not go well. The speaker was a substitute filling in to give someone else presentation. All she did was read the PowerPoint slides. How exciting is that? I did feel sorry for her because it was not her presentation so she really is not at fault. She did the best she could.

In the afternoon I drove over to another high school for a change of topic. This particular school has a reputation as the school in the district. Since it's still Holocaust remembrance month they have a section in one of the hallways set up as a large exhibit called "The Hall of Remembrance". Students had over 150 topics to choose from ranging from the concentration camps, to transportation, to Nazi leaders, to liberation accounts, etc. The the most popular topic was titled "It Could Have Been Me", which juxtaposed a young victim with one of the current students lives. What I found most interesting was none of these explained the connection of how it happened then or could happen again. Nowhere in the exhibit did it explain why the Holocaust happened either. Sorry, but telling me the Nazis wanted to purify Germany is not enough. No mention of religion or ethics or the secularization of German society that allowed the most technologically and scientifically advanced country in Continental Europe to systematically murder 6 million plus human beings. I had a feeling of "Let's tell the story of the Holocaust, but be politically correct so we don't offend anyone".