Originally posted June 2, 2007.
“What strengths will you bring to our school?” This was the first question delivered to me as I interviewed for a third grade position. I was ready for it. Both my wife and I are educators, and after teaching out of state for three years, we were ready to move back to her hometown. We had practiced interviewing each other for weeks and hopefully mastered a “confidence without arrogance” demeanor. We had drilled each other on dozens of interview questions and already interviewed several times that summer, so my answers were honed, smooth, concise, polished. I was even pretty good at looking thoughtful before each question, even though I knew exactly what I would say. And, I knew what was coming next: “What areas of weakness or growth have you identified in your teaching?” That’s a tricky one, unless you know that principals actually have a list of acceptable weaknesses. If you were unaware of this list, let me share a few of the top items with you.
- I tend to over-commit.
- I’m a bit of a perfectionist.
- I always stay at school until 9:00 at night. It drives my family and the custodian crazy.
As soon as I walked into the school, I knew that it was completely different than the rest of the schools in the county. The interview was markedly unique, too. All the other interviews lasted for a minimum of two hours, and it was only the principal and I. Mono y mono. That was actually quite comfortable. At this school, though, I sat in a circle comprised of seven teachers and the principal, and each person was allowed to ask one, and only one, question. The principal laid the rules of the interview down for me at the beginning, and informed me that no interview had lasted longer than twenty-five minutes yet. This was not comfortable. I did not know where to look, and I was nervous that twenty-five minutes would not be long enough for me to portray my teaching abilities.
The interview had a nice rhythm to it, like a good volley in tennis. Serve, bounce, return, bounce, and so on. So, I deftly and quickly hurdled the questions laid out before me, gauging the information I wanted to deliver against the number of questions that remained. The last question belonged to the principal. I had done my homework. I knew she had been named the state’s Principal of the Year recently, and I wanted her to know that I was up to the task of teaching for her. But her question came as a complete surprise. “You’ve been teaching for three years,” she said, “Those who leave education do so in the first five years of teaching. How do you plan to avoid ‘teacher-burn-out’?”
Here is where the interview team must have realized that all the previous answers had been rehearsed, because I had no polished, readily available commentary. The ball had been served. It had bounced, and my racquet was still hanging limp at my side.
What was the “right” answer to this precarious question? The truth was, I assumed I would burn out sooner or later. I figured everybody did; it must be a fact of life whether you’re an educator or a lawyer or a doctor or a chef. Passion couldn’t be constant, could it? Was that really the question? What would I do to keep the passion of teaching alive?
The way I saw it was this: when you’re young and new, passion is inevitable. During these years, educators develop their skills while they have the energy, time, and patience to do so. Then, passion ebbs away and teachers rely on experience they have amassed and the need to pay their student loans. Surely doctors and lawyers do this, I thought.
But, you can’t say that in a job interview, and at the moment I was feeling quite on fire and not at all burnt out. And, I noted, here were seven teachers with significantly more experience than I had, sitting on tiny chairs in a reading lab listening to me answer their questions in the middle of the summer. Surely no burnt-out teacher would volunteer to be on an interview team in early July.
Eventually, I came dangerously close to joining the nearly fifty-percent of teachers that quit teaching within the first seven years. Later, when I was asked what strengths I bring to the school, I could not even answer the question. Two things drew me back into the love of education. The first was leadership, and the second was the potential for change.
Leaders at my school—teachers and administrators—have invested a great deal in me. They have caught me up in the vision for our school; they have poured time, energy, counsel, patience, and professional development into me. They have listened, waited, and developed my pedagogical skills. They have been instrumental in creating the leader that I am today. I used to view school leaders as angry paper-pushers, but the administration and teachers of Thrasher Elementary School have helped me see school leadership as a powerful agent of change.
The potential for change also brought my passion back into education. I no longer believe that we must perform in certain ways simply because of historical inertia. Of all people in the educational realm, I believe teachers and administrators have the ability and the best opportunity for improving instruction. Changes should and can be made in instruction and assessment with good research, mindful experimentation, and the students’ interests at heart.
Now, embarking on my ninth year in education, I am clamoring to learn more and more about this noble profession. I have written standards-based curriculum for local museums and volunteered as a liaison between local museums and schools. I have been accepted into the United States Department of Education’s Teacher-to-Teacher Training Corps as a presenter of original professional development. I have used scientific and action research to design my own standards-based assessment regiment and its related computer program to track student progress. I have finished my Master’s degree in educational administration. Yet, I feel insatiable. I want to learn more than I know, do more than I have done, and be more than I am.
I have come to firmly believe that no group of isolated teachers and administrators can meet today’s demands for education.
The next time I am asked what strengths I bring to the school, I will be ready. That answer is so much deeper and broader than it was five years ago. I am a part of a highly effective and collegial learning community, I have an intense understanding of the educational system, that I know how to affect change, and I have an irrevocable passion for learning and teaching.
