Another Interview Down!

After subbing all day yesterday, I drove an hour to a long term sub interview. I actually interviewed at the school last year for the permanent position but a woman who had worked there in the past was also applying. So, they, unsurprisingly, gave the position to the previous employee. Now she's having a baby and they need a long term substitute.

The interview went pretty well even though I was pretty tired by the time I got there. I also got a little stuck in traffic and only arrived about five minutes early when I usually try for at least ten. I felt a bit frazzled as I always do when running late. But for the most part I was asked questions that I've answered before and it was pretty standard. The one plus of having interviewed so many times (I think I'm over 25 teaching interviews at this point) is that I've already thought of answers to almost all the possible questions.

I did get a little stumped by one question and it was really something I should have had worked out ahead of time. I always tell people that I'm what is known as a "constructivist" teacher. (I just tried to find a way to explain what that means but really can't right now. If you don't know, google it.) They wanted to know an example of how I've actually been constructivist. For some reason, that really stumped me and I had to slow myself down a little and think. There really wasn't any good reason why I was stumped as almost everything I do can be considered constructivism. So I told them I couldn't think of anything concrete right then but that I'd talk about what I do in broader terms and them hopefully I'd think of an example. Thankfully, I did think of a great example, which was this Indian culture project I had the students do during one of my LTS (Long term sub) jobs. They had to read this somewhat older novel about India and I really wanted them to learn something about India. The majority of ninth graders in VT know very little, if anything, about India. So I let them choose anything they wanted about Indian culture and they were to research it and write a paper and give a presentation. They also had to tie it to the book, but that was somewhat minor. It was mostly just to get them to learn something that was of interest to them

So, that was good. I did have a moment (I think when trying to come up with a constructivism example) where my face got hot. I really hate when that happens at an interview. Whenever I start to feel uncomfortable, blood rushes to my face and it gets really hot. I know that my face is red and it makes me even more uncomfortable. I know an interview probably didn't go super well if that happened a lot during it.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!