I've taken the Oklahoma General Education Test (OGET) and the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, submitted a lesson plan and received a passing score, maintained at least a 2.5 gpa, and taken all of the necessary courses (concurrently enrolled in last one) to be admitted to teacher education at Cameron. Monday I completed the final step: the interview. The interview is to convince them that you have the 3 C's it takes to be a teacher: Competent, Caring, and Committed.
It actually wasn't bad. Everyone I spoke to said, "Oh, it's just Courtney. No one else ever shows up." But no. I had Courtney and two other professors. I would have had three additional professors except Courtney called and pushed the time back thirty minutes and the other professor had to leave. I know Courtney pretty well though and one of the other professors is my Teaching Primary Reading professor from this semester, so I wasn't too uncomfortable.
Courtney started it out by clicking off all of the requirements. She said I was well above average on everything and definitely met all of the requirements. She mentioned the OGET score and whispered "294" to the two other professors. Then she said, "We can only speak of it in hushed tones." That made me feel good. Apparently not too many people score that high!
Then they started the questions, which are canned and asked of all the candidates. I'll give my answers, but they will definitely be more polished as I'm writing them here than what I actually said.
Why do you want to teach?
I believe I have a talent for it. I no longer believe I have much of a talent in the job I'm in now. At the end of kindergarten last year, my girls came home with all of these workbooks that didn't get used during the school year. Ashley asked me if I would be their teacher and they could go through the workbooks. I stayed up until well after midnight coming up with all of these ideas for the summer. We would have this summer-long unit on transportation. Each week would be over something else. One week would be about bikes and we would study the letter B, learn about body parts - like the ones that need protected when you ride a bike, and go to the bicycle festival. Another week we would study about trains and go up to the City and ride the train and visit the railroad museum there. I spent hours searching the internet for ideas and figuring out what books I could check out from the public library and Cameron's library to go with each week's theme. The next morning I woke up exhausted but still coming up with ideas. That's how it's been since I had children. When they were first born, I changed to three-quarter time so that I could work three days and stay home two days. The two days I stayed home I tried to do a type of day-care setting. I planned lessons and outings for us. I planned experiences. My educational philosophy is that there should be lots of experiential learning. I loved planning those days. As I drove to work, I realized that I really wanted to be doing all of that full-time instead of what I currently do. I still like my current job. I just feel that I'm better qualified to be a teacher. A week later, I was enrolled in my first classes.
You have been teaching for two years now. You're past the first couple years of just surviving and figuring everything out. What do you see yourself doing then?
I want to start doing all of the ideas that I didn't have time to do because of survival mode. I really want to work with parental involvement. I want to have a strong newsletter that I send out to them. Possibly, that newsletter would be in the form of a blog. I would have the student who is the class leader that day also be responsible for posting something on the blog for the day. (That's about all I said in the interview, but this really is a passion for me. I'd like to maybe have a monthly evening session for the parents to give them ideas of what we're working on and how they can do things with their children. Maybe have the children perform a play for them or do something so they can see it. If I were working with older children and we had to do the science experiment stuff, I'd have workshops so that the parents and kids could come up to the school and work on it or get ideas on what to do. I'd send home events that parents could take their children to and book suggestions. I'm not naive enough to think that all of the parents would take my suggestions or show up to these events. I don't even do everything that is sent home with my girls. There just isn't time. But we do some of it. And if just a few parents do some of it, you've helped a few students. It's one more touch, one more emphasis, one more encouragement, one more chance at learning.)
In your experiences, how much opportunity have you had to work with diverse children?
I teach Sunday School and have had quite a diverse group. Most recently, we had a hispanic girl. She was a very sweet girl and spoke very rapid English but with a heavy accent. We had to concentrate every time she spoke in order to understand her. She was such a sweet girl though and a joy to be around. (Once again, that's about all I said on that. I didn't feel I answered it very well. The professor asking me was African-American and I just didn't know how I should answer very well and make sure I was politically correct. I think I should have gone in a little about a child we have that I believe has some sort of disability. It's not severe, but it's enough that you can tell he is cognitively and pyschosocially behind the others at his age. But I didn't...oh well.)
Think of times that you have had to accomplish something as a group, either at work or in one of your classes. What was your involvement in the group?
My most recent involvement in a large project was the Banner migration at work. I was involved with the student team for awhile and then ended up only on the AggieAccess team. Since I was in several of the student trainings, my colleagues still come to me asking questions about the student side. I end up being a resource of sorts. (I didn't answer nearly as well as all of that. I think Courtney helped me by asking some questions. If I were answering it more coherently, I would have said "One of my greatest contributions to group projects is my ability to remember what was said and to take good notes that can be shared with the group as a whole. I'm able to take my notes from training and sit down and do the work. I'm also good at coming up with ideas to approach problems. One of the issues facing us during the Banner migration was how to store placement in such a way that it both worked in the system without modifications and would also display to the campus so that they could enroll. I came up with the idea of making placement a test score and setting that up. My colleagues implemented everything after I was moved off the student team, but I came up with the original idea and they sometimes came to me with questions later." That would have been a much better answer that at least had an example with it. But again, that's not what I said. Oh well....)
Well, that's all I can remember. I'm pretty sure there was another question, but I sure can't remember what it was! They asked if I had any questions for them, but that's a post for another evening. Gotta head to bed!
It actually wasn't bad. Everyone I spoke to said, "Oh, it's just Courtney. No one else ever shows up." But no. I had Courtney and two other professors. I would have had three additional professors except Courtney called and pushed the time back thirty minutes and the other professor had to leave. I know Courtney pretty well though and one of the other professors is my Teaching Primary Reading professor from this semester, so I wasn't too uncomfortable.
Courtney started it out by clicking off all of the requirements. She said I was well above average on everything and definitely met all of the requirements. She mentioned the OGET score and whispered "294" to the two other professors. Then she said, "We can only speak of it in hushed tones." That made me feel good. Apparently not too many people score that high!
Then they started the questions, which are canned and asked of all the candidates. I'll give my answers, but they will definitely be more polished as I'm writing them here than what I actually said.
Why do you want to teach?
I believe I have a talent for it. I no longer believe I have much of a talent in the job I'm in now. At the end of kindergarten last year, my girls came home with all of these workbooks that didn't get used during the school year. Ashley asked me if I would be their teacher and they could go through the workbooks. I stayed up until well after midnight coming up with all of these ideas for the summer. We would have this summer-long unit on transportation. Each week would be over something else. One week would be about bikes and we would study the letter B, learn about body parts - like the ones that need protected when you ride a bike, and go to the bicycle festival. Another week we would study about trains and go up to the City and ride the train and visit the railroad museum there. I spent hours searching the internet for ideas and figuring out what books I could check out from the public library and Cameron's library to go with each week's theme. The next morning I woke up exhausted but still coming up with ideas. That's how it's been since I had children. When they were first born, I changed to three-quarter time so that I could work three days and stay home two days. The two days I stayed home I tried to do a type of day-care setting. I planned lessons and outings for us. I planned experiences. My educational philosophy is that there should be lots of experiential learning. I loved planning those days. As I drove to work, I realized that I really wanted to be doing all of that full-time instead of what I currently do. I still like my current job. I just feel that I'm better qualified to be a teacher. A week later, I was enrolled in my first classes.
You have been teaching for two years now. You're past the first couple years of just surviving and figuring everything out. What do you see yourself doing then?
I want to start doing all of the ideas that I didn't have time to do because of survival mode. I really want to work with parental involvement. I want to have a strong newsletter that I send out to them. Possibly, that newsletter would be in the form of a blog. I would have the student who is the class leader that day also be responsible for posting something on the blog for the day. (That's about all I said in the interview, but this really is a passion for me. I'd like to maybe have a monthly evening session for the parents to give them ideas of what we're working on and how they can do things with their children. Maybe have the children perform a play for them or do something so they can see it. If I were working with older children and we had to do the science experiment stuff, I'd have workshops so that the parents and kids could come up to the school and work on it or get ideas on what to do. I'd send home events that parents could take their children to and book suggestions. I'm not naive enough to think that all of the parents would take my suggestions or show up to these events. I don't even do everything that is sent home with my girls. There just isn't time. But we do some of it. And if just a few parents do some of it, you've helped a few students. It's one more touch, one more emphasis, one more encouragement, one more chance at learning.)
In your experiences, how much opportunity have you had to work with diverse children?
I teach Sunday School and have had quite a diverse group. Most recently, we had a hispanic girl. She was a very sweet girl and spoke very rapid English but with a heavy accent. We had to concentrate every time she spoke in order to understand her. She was such a sweet girl though and a joy to be around. (Once again, that's about all I said on that. I didn't feel I answered it very well. The professor asking me was African-American and I just didn't know how I should answer very well and make sure I was politically correct. I think I should have gone in a little about a child we have that I believe has some sort of disability. It's not severe, but it's enough that you can tell he is cognitively and pyschosocially behind the others at his age. But I didn't...oh well.)
Think of times that you have had to accomplish something as a group, either at work or in one of your classes. What was your involvement in the group?
My most recent involvement in a large project was the Banner migration at work. I was involved with the student team for awhile and then ended up only on the AggieAccess team. Since I was in several of the student trainings, my colleagues still come to me asking questions about the student side. I end up being a resource of sorts. (I didn't answer nearly as well as all of that. I think Courtney helped me by asking some questions. If I were answering it more coherently, I would have said "One of my greatest contributions to group projects is my ability to remember what was said and to take good notes that can be shared with the group as a whole. I'm able to take my notes from training and sit down and do the work. I'm also good at coming up with ideas to approach problems. One of the issues facing us during the Banner migration was how to store placement in such a way that it both worked in the system without modifications and would also display to the campus so that they could enroll. I came up with the idea of making placement a test score and setting that up. My colleagues implemented everything after I was moved off the student team, but I came up with the original idea and they sometimes came to me with questions later." That would have been a much better answer that at least had an example with it. But again, that's not what I said. Oh well....)
Well, that's all I can remember. I'm pretty sure there was another question, but I sure can't remember what it was! They asked if I had any questions for them, but that's a post for another evening. Gotta head to bed!