Well, I got a letter in the mail from that private Catholic school today...turns out they will not be hiring me for that position I was very much hoping to get after all. However, it is a very nice rejection letter, assuring me that since I was asked to teach a class (what I call my "trial" lesson) I was "a serious candidate and ... possess the necessary ability to become a successful educator." (In other words, this was not one of those situations where the school already knew what candidate they were going to hire and just interviewed additional candidates to be nice and/or fulfill a quota.) It also invites me to contact the school should I be interested in being on their supply teacher list or "to do some volunteer work or coaching." I am especially intrigued by the mention of a supply teacher list, as the teacher that observed my trial lesson told me when I inquired that they cover all their absences internally and do not maintain such a list. Perhaps I impressed the school sufficiently to change that ;)...or perhaps I simply received wrong information the first time around.
My "documenting" session that will place me on the Toronto District School Board supply teacher list occurs next Tuesday. Many people attend these sessions and get processed by the TDSB all at once, as they explain how to fill out the forms, make sure everything is in order, put together your file and explain how the call process works that tells you your assignment each day. There are several documents I'm required to bring with me, including the results of a tuberculosis (TB) test. This test takes 2 doctor's appointments over 3 days--one appointment for the doctor to put an injection under your skin, and another appointment 48 hours later for the doctor to check your skin to see if you've reacted to the injection. I had the latter appointment today, and I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that I do not have TB. Yay.
This past Monday I also sent an application package to a school in Oshawa that interviewed me back in June because they put up a new posting last week for a position exactly like the one I interviewed for (an interview which the principal told me was great even before I left the school that day, but which obviously did not result in a position). I have not yet been contacted by the school, although given how much time passed last time between my applying for the position and being invited to be interviewed it's still possible that they will give me a call. I am trying to maintain the attitude that it would be nice to hear something from them, but I won't hold my breath and won't be devastated if I don't get a call.
All in all, what this job search keeps telling me is this: everyone who interviews me and everyone who sees me in action tells me that I am a good teacher, bright, interview well, etc. The only thing which anyone in a hiring position has against me is my lack of paid teaching experience. This is a frustrating obstacle to have in my way, because it is something completely and utterly out of my hands. I am basically waiting for a principal out there to have the guts to hire me despite this lack of paid teaching experience so that I will therefore have the experience I need to secure a paid teaching position. (To be fair, I'm really waiting not so much on them to have such guts but for a position to become available which a bunch of more-experienced people do not apply for, I suppose. Hopefully those who have been hired in my place are also well-qualified, bright, etc. I'd hate to think the reason I haven't been hired is because principals have found their hands tied by unions or whatever and had to hire less-qualified-but-more-experienced teachers in my place.) Well, to that end, I do know that going on the supply teacher list is going to help me. This will give me paid experience managing a classroom of students. It's not going to give me paid lesson-planning experience, paid parent-teacher-conference experience, paid long-term-class-behaviour-management experience (well, it might if I get a long-term occasional position like a maternity leave, but I'm not sure that will happen right away; I'm sure it'll be one-day-at-a-time for a while). It's not necessarily going to give me a realistic teaching experience even in the behaviour department, since some students (or entire classes of students) act up in extreme ways when the "regular" teacher is away. However, if such paid time in a classroom is what I need to justify myself as a professional educator worthy of being hired in the eyes of those with hiring power, then so be it. Bring it on. If I can survive the daily struggles that come with being the substitute teacher, surely someone out there will see that I can handle the (different, but still present) daily struggles of having my own classroom.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment