Friday, June 4, 2004

A week ago, as I was still on campus (CSUN) I thought about how I would have answered some questions differently in the interview (for acceptance into the credentials program) I had been given minutes before. There was one interviewer and four of us being interviewed. The questions were straight-forward. “Why do you want to become a teacher?” among others. I had made several mid-sentence pauses and I failed to incorporate into my response my experiences working as a teacher assistant.

I didn’t mention how students come to me whenever they have issues. Sometimes these issues lead into a “Bullying is not allowed at Jefferson” discussion. Other times it means me having to climb up to a roof and fetch a ball or a shoe of some guy who thought it was fun to throw it in the air and watch it fall — until it didn’t. I also failed to mention how I do things for students without them having to say a thing. When I saw that Christian’s scooter had been assembled incorrectly, I asked him to bring his scooter to me after school; I re-assembled it and fixed the problem. When Javier brought to school a ball (stuffed with some soft material) that had a two-inches cut, I asked him for it and I sew it during my lunch break. These and other things show that I care for the students at Jefferson, and that I want to give them a positive impression about their educators.

I could have also mentioned that I’m already making a difference as an educator. I’ve seen students change their ways thanks to the talks I have with them. It’s not that I say the right things to them, more than it’s my offering of the right goods. 🙂 I tell them that I’ll be keeping an eye on them, and if I see good behavior, I’ll reward them for it. Suddenly these students turn their playground life around; they become model students.

It turns out that I would have a chance to give better responses, for the day after the interview I had been scheduled for a second interview. As far as I know, a second interview is not a good thing, for it means (I believe) that the first one was not satisfactory. I was told that I would be meeting with the chairman of the department and that I would be the only person interviewed.

The second interview took place yesterday, the 3rd. of June. I walked toward my interviewer’s office expecting to see (for some unknown reason) a hispanic lady, by herself. Instead, there were two people there to conduct the interview, both white. Talk about surprise! (I mention their whiteness because there are some things I could have said to a hispanic interviewer and not to a white interviewer; something along the lines of hispanic children being able to identify more with a teacher whose culture and experience is more like their own, yada, yada, yada. An issue in a school like Jefferson, where more than 90% of students are spanish-speaking.)

As I was leaving the building where the interview had taken place, I wondered if I should have been in the celebration mood. I had been told something to the effect of “Welcome to the credentials program” but there was something I didn’t like about all this process. The idea that my future could have been determined in fifteen minutes, based on how presentable I looked and how I responded to a series of questions. Me being a man of written-words, not spoken, I was almost screwed. Also, grades would have no bearing on the interviewers’ decision, and in my case this was a bad thing. All those A‘s should have been taken as indication of how hard I’m willing to work to achieve my goals. But no, I was almost kept out of a program, in spite of them…

By the way, part of the reason why I didn’t feel like celebrating after being told I had been accepted into the program was that I felt my responses were not adequate. I felt these two people had been smiling and nodding their heads as I spoke, only pretending to find my responses satisfactory. My responses were not much better than those I had given a week before (first interview). In fact, I later summarized the interview for a coworker, telling her that if they had asked, “A or B?” I would have said “C!”

1 Comment

1. JUST BE HAPPY, SECOND GUESSING IS A WASTE OF TIME IN MY OPINION. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

   Comment by Noly — June 4, 2004 @ 10:23 am

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