Interview Prep

How frustrating that I lost all the other work that I did!


Leadership area CAR:  Set up new programs at SVC and Sedro-Woolley - school and wider community involvement; because I wanted to keep up with my languages I had the idea to set up a language exchange, day long shadow, keypals and conversation partner program.  I had to design a way to market the programs, help students get started; then check in with them periodically as well as some get togethers to keep the program alive.  Results:  students learned from each other - South/North Korea; typical day in the other culture, that there is still a lot of prejudice out there, practiced language and friendships developed so int'l students felt less isolated.  One student even decided to convince parents to be a host family.

Event organizer:  SVC activities, Japanese Club, Outdoor Group, friends - lots of details to give everyone a great experience

Learned Flexibility:  Organized a trip to Mt. Baker; person called 8:30 a.m. to say couldn't make it; that person was to drive etc.; just wasn't sure she could go.  I told her that if she couldn't go, it was her responsiblity to find another driver/food contribution since I was working and was not the one who couldn't go.  She didn't drop out, but there have been other times when I needed to be completely flexible and change all details at the last minute.

Most Difficult Events at Work:  Student Death SVC; Chrysalis, stalker, kid with creative homework stories/his angry father

Good Qualities:

Caring: 

Dependable:  don't miss work unless child emergency or truly sick

Developed positive attitude/feel like I can connect to children and adults due to some tragic and joyous life experiences giving me empathy I could not have had without those.

Strategic Planning CAR:  I started at SWHS without any real teacher training one day before school and walked into a classroom in shambles.  I put it together in a pleasing fashion, worked on lesson plans for the first week, made and copied syllabi, and then worked through many evenings and weekends to come up with a curriculum:  I started with surveys and other get to know types of activities designed to build rapport with me and their fellow students (name game in language, icebreakers, how do you learn best . . . ), developed learning goals for each lesson, each unit, each quarter, each semester, and a checklist for each quarter - one students could use; designed activities for each theme; then put together informal and formal assessments for learning.  I set up a suggestion box with the proviso that it be positive, and I would incorporate their suggestions.  I had them check each other's work using rubrics so that they could get better at self correction.  I had them evaluate me, whether the lesson met the goal for them that week, what was still confusing, what they felt they understood well.  Students met those goals.  I had very few fail because I would invite them for academic help and informal chats about life.

Problem Solving CAR:  As you can imagine, not having teacher training before my first ever high school class meant I had to figure out classroom management quickly.  I explored several options just to see how they would work and kept track of how much on task time there was.  I eventually found that seating charts with partners and groups of 4 that rotated every two weeks seemed to work best to start the year.  I could motivate students by saying that if they did well all week, they could sit by friends on Fridays as long as they were able to be reasonably on task.  Another practice that worked well was if they worked hard all week, we would have a quiz Friday and after that, we could do something fun such as a game in the language, a craft, or part of a movie.  Most of the time students were on task.  I do ongoing evaluations so that students have input, and I do my best to incorporate all relevant feedback.

**Motivated Abilities:

1.  Organizing Events/Planning Activities
2.  Chatting about life informally; mutual learning and sharing of ways to be positive about life's challenges and problem solving = mentoring others - love to help people learn new jobs, skills, etc.
3.  Studying and Sharing languages and cultures
4.  Self improvement
5.  Read and Write
6.  Outdoor programs

**30 Second Pitch:

I have over 15 years of experience in teaching and advising.  What I really enjoy is planning activities, interacting with others, mentoring others, sharing languages and cultures, and learning from other people (including my students) as I feel we are all works in progress.  There is no point at which we are masters and done learning and improving what we do.  I have lots of energy and like to get students moving and being active and laughing.  The best moments are when we are having fun in this dance of learning.  I will share things I have done in certain situations as appropriate if I feel it will help them on their journey through life.

As a result, I have been able to establish rapport with students and motivate and encourage them to learn a new language.  I make it as fun and interesting as possible by sharing anecdotes of life in other cultures and entertaining mistakes I have made as well as adding games, music, interactive online programs, and projects.

**The shorter version of the above:

I assist students to become lifelong learners, develop good study skills for any subject, and in particular develop foundational skills in the language - enough to be able to communicate and beyond depending on how many years they study.


Most school mission statements include:

1.  inspire excellence
2.  develop intellectual curiosity
3.  multicultural understanding and acceptance
4.  act responsibly
5.  develop critical thinking
6   connect the dots
7.  foster compassionate community


I model intellectual curiosity as whenever someone talks about something I don't know, I ask about it and say how fun it is to learn something new daily or if no-one knows anything about some reference in a current event, etc., I say "who wants to find out about that and report back"  I will have groups take over a topic to share with the group or do a 10-minute teach on a grammar point as teaching promotes deeper learning.  Enthusiasm in contagious. 

Critical thinking:  applying rules to real life situations; understand the whys behind different cultural viewpoints, memorizing stimulates the brain

Connect dots:  language and culture go together, learn history, art, geography, music, and literature as part of language study; the grammar and vocab helps them with English

Act responsibly:  learn to relate to partners or members of group you don't necessary like; rotate leadership of group, work on motivating others to do their share, build knowledge to be informed citizens; class is not always about content but is person centered - look for teachable moments

Compassion:  think about the effect of your actions upon others

Multicultural:  compare/contrast other world viewpoints; explore your personal feelings and values and look at what is the same with others and what could be different; develop respect for differences and think how boring life would be if we were all the same.

Excellence:  having the courage to say "I don't know.  Let's find out together".  Encourage quality over quantity in homework/tasks for class   -   positive comments about their strengths and encourage in one area of improvement; then move to another area.  Model excellence in my preparation and integrity.