Teaching

As many of you know, I'm possibly going to become a teacher. I've applied with two alternative certification programs: Chicago Teaching Fellows, and Oakland Teaching Fellows. Today I had an all day interview event with Chicago Teaching Fellows. After an introduction, we were split into groups of 8-12 people. (I think there were supposed to be 10-12 people in a group, but there were 4 people in my group who didn't show, so we had only 8. The first activity in this group was for each person to give a 5 minute lesson to the rest of the group in the subject of their choice, and to the age level of their choice.

Let me back up....there were somewhere around 90 people interviewing, ranging in age from about 22 to 65. This was the third interview event, so if there were about 100 people at each interview event, that means about half of us will be offered positions. My group was all in their twenties, and 3 of the 8 of us are interested in teaching Spanish.

Anyway, while one person was teaching a lesson, the rest of us had to pretend that we were students in the age group that the person was teaching to. Let me tell you, it's hard to pretend that you're a second or fourth grader.

The sample teaching was followed by a writing session: we had 20 minutes to write a memo to our hypothetical principal regarding a parent's complaints about us as teachers not living up to promises we had made to make the year a success. After that we had 20 minutes of group discussion about how we would handle a specific hardship we might face as teachers. I felt like I was pretty evenly matched with the others in my group, but I'm not sure how all of the other group sessions went. I should hear back sometime in the next month or so.

In a couple of weeks I'm going out to Oakland California to do the same thing all over again. Fun times. Hopefully I get at least one job offer out of this. If I get two, I'm not sure which one I would choose. Chicago is near family and some friends, and I know no one in California, but Oakland is near the ocean (and bays), not too far from the mountains, and warm. Being in a warm climate only 3 hours away from great skiing sounds really appealing to me, even if that job pays a little less.

Both of the programs have a summer training institute, but both of them are paid by a stipend at the end of the training. The tentative dates from CTF are June 9-July 23. The stipend for CTF is only $1000 before taxes, but the OTF stipend is $2000 minus taxes. Either way I won't have a lot of income for the summer. Hopefully I can find some cheap housing, and hopefully I can find some sort of work to fill the rest of the summer. Chicago Public Schools doesn't start until after Labor Day, so that leaves almost 6 weeks in between the end of the training and the beginning of the school year. At the end of the first year, I would have a full Illinois teaching Certification, and would be only 2 or 3 classes away from a Master's degree. During the school year, I would have to go to class 2 nights a week, and the tuition (it's through a local university) is 10-15k. But I can get an Americorp award of $4725/year for the first two years, and Chicago Public Schools will deduct the rest from my payroll for 4 years, interest free. Not a bad deal.

If I get one of these teaching jobs, I think I might start a blog called “Confessions of a First Year Teacher” or something like that to share my experiences and reflect on them. Something for you to look forward to. Maybe it would become a book someday. That sounds like a good book, doesn't it?