Evaluating Interviews

Being able to experience an interview for a teaching position was a helpful exercise in that it caused me to think about questions I could be asked when looking for a teaching job, as well as gave me the opportunity to reflect on the answers I provided. Many of the questions really made me think about how to effectively answer what I was being asked while basing my answers on my experience with fieldwork and in classes. Being asked how I would handle students engaging in a physical fight was definitely a question I had not previously considered. Students fighting one another is not an unusual thing for me in that in elementary and middle school fighting occurred in my schools and classes, but I had never considered how I would handle being in the position of the teacher in such a situation.

Not only were the questions interesting to think of, it was sometimes difficult to make sure I knew how I wanted to answer before I began speaking. In a normal class setting I likely would have been able to answer the questions at least on a basic level. Because it was an interview, regardless of the fact that the "principals" were my peers, it was important to me to make sure I was answering the questions as fully as possible. I also wanted to make sure my responses were well thought out so I wouldn't be hesitating in the middle of sentences or tripping over my own words while trying to express my thoughts. It was satisfying to feel prepared in answering the questions in that I knew I was drawing from my experience for fieldwork as well as information I was taught in classes from various different semesters. Feeling relatively comfortable in giving my responses validated me in my career path because, even while I know there is nothing else I want to do in life but become a teacher, being comfortable answering questions about how I would implement different aspects of teaching in a classroom was reassuring. Being "hired" based on my interviews with the different schools at the end of the process was definitely rewarding and has provided me with a small push and renewed determination to finish out the semester as strongly as possible.