the hunt

so i intentionally put my "worrying" about getting a job on hold until i officially moved here. after having two schools pass me up for interviews simply because i wasn't there, i figured there wasn't much i could do from a distance. so....when i arrived monday afternoon, the hunt was on!

there is a school in illinois close to marc's work that i was the most interested in. this is the school where i wrote letters, left voicemails, and eventually decided to just show up on the doorstep as if to say "here i am. pay attention to me!" this is also the school with the asbestos clean-up project going on. the principal seemed less than enthused to have me there. she was alone in the office when i got there. she couldn't even unlock the sliding glass window to talk to me and reluctantly told me i could "just come around." i handed her my packet of lesson projects and examples and gave her a little schpeel about how great i was. at first, she seemed to want me to just leave as soon as possible. but after i started talking, she warmed up and asked a few questions. under the circumstances, i feel like it went fairly well.

the next day, i had an interview in missouri scheduled for 10:00. not to sound ungrateful, but i wasn't very excited about this particular meeting. the position being offered was in kindergarten, and it was for higher income kids which i'm not used to. it was weird because i had been so desperate to get even ONE interview, and here i was not really caring about the first one i was given. i think in the long run though, that apathetic attitude made me do better than i expected. it relaxed me in a way. there weren't any questions that i didn't feel comfortable answering. i just blabbed on about guided reading and staff camaraderie. at the end, he told me that i was a good interviewer. i don't know if that meant he was impressed or that he thought i was full of hot air. about 4 hours later, i got a phone call from a missouri number and i assumed it was him. however...it was a female principal in the same district. apparently he passed my name on to a sister school that he thought i would be better suited for. i had rambled on and on to him about teaching kids from lower income homes, and how i truly had a heart for them. the school that was now calling was more similar to what i was used to. she gave me directions to their campus and we had a date for 12:30 the next day.

when i arrived at coverdell elementary, i was promptly handed a clipboard with an "assignment." it basically asked me to write down activities i would use when teaching a unit on measurement. i spent about 15 minutes scrawling out as many ideas as i could think of before the principal came in and got me. she took me to a small room with a panel of teachers. they round-robin asked me the standard interview questions (some were even the same as the ones from the day before). i really felt good about what i was saying. i was just honest and open and myself. i got a few laughs and they genuinely seemed interested in what i had to share. i had a really good feeling about this one. at the very end of the q&a session, she asked me which grade level i would most like to teach. of course i said second. two and a half hours later, the principal called me. she said that the interview panel was very impressed with me and that she had spoken to some of my references, who couldn't say enough great things about me. THANKS GUYS! :) she offered me a second grade position and i told her i would call her in the morning to let her know my decision. speaking of....i have a phone call to make!!