End.

Hello from the same place where I was when I started this blog - the lovely world of unemployment. Well, that was a moderately pessimistic way to start this post. Anyway here's the scoop. 

Monday was the last day with the kids.  I went to school for just a few hours on Tuesday to sign out and then I went back to my old home school (from when I was doing the part-time gig) to return a book and say hi to my old friends. After student teaching was over, I was really emotional - maybe because it was the end of my first time really teaching in a school and maybe because I had just conducted my first concert which made me realize that teaching was what I was meant to do and I was good at it... Regardless, I knew that there was a chance I'd be emotional on Monday saying bye to the kids but I really wasn't; I was more sad about leaving the colleagues I had grown so close to and about the fact that I don't know where I'm teaching next year. 

I have a few leads about what jobs will be open in the future but only have 1 active application out at the moment. I've had 3 interviews so far and from what I've heard, most districts won't start interviewing again until the middle/end of July. Guess what else is happening in the middle/end of July? My wedding and honeymoon! Sigh/yay. I've had to put in the final paragraph of my cover letter that I'm unavailable for contact between July 20 and 29th and I really hope that it doesn't deter employers from calling me. If not, maybe I can sue for discrimination? I'll work on it. 

I guess I should have some kind of summary of how I felt this year of teaching and what I've learned. Well I already did that kind of thing for my general music gig and I feel like I've already been keeping up with what I've learned in the band gig, but here goes. Alls I really knows is I'm a good teacher and I want nothing else in the world than to teach. I also stand by the fact that if you have good rapport with the kids and stay true to your personality at any age level they will work with you.  Being real with kids helps them achieve more so why not be yourself? Yeah I guess those are my nuggets of wisdom from junior high band. 

Here's hoping I'll report back soon with a job.

Almost Everything I Know About Interviewing

Over the last year, I have been getting calls for a lot of interviews. Along the way I have learned some things that I want to share so hopefully you, my loyal readers, will get the upper hand in an interview someday.

be you

I know I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating that I was super confident about finding an a sweet band job coming out of college.  Even when I was in an interview for a job I didn't feel confident about, I brought personal confidence to the room to send those vibes into the world! I still do that now as a teacher with experience who is again on the hunt.  I always aim to be myself in the classroom and I feel that an interview is really no time to be fake.  In one interview, a member of the panel said they were interviewing 17 people including me so in a situation like that, it is important to be yourself and be distinctive.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am very outgoing, like to joke around, and that my conversations are usually very animated.  This has worked well in most of my interviews because it helps start a dialogue between the panel and me.  However, in one interview I made a joke and none of the four panel members smiled or anything. Let's be honest - I'm used to blank stares from my peers, students, family, cats, when I tell a joke but not even a courtesy laugh?! Then it happened again with something that I didn't mean to be funny but came out wrong. It was very disconcerting because I didn't know if I was blowing my chance with my personality.  I put it in the back of my mind and continued to be confident in myself and how I was acting.  I asked my dad about it later and he said something I had never heard before - in some districts, there is a policy that you keep the interviewing climate consistent for all candidates.  That means no deriving from the questions on the interview sheet (which is something that many districts use) and no additional encouragement to or interaction with the candidate.  When I looked at the interview through that lens after the fact, I do remember seeing them relax and smile just before I played at the very end...but that didn't do me much good when I was concerned during the questioning.

be prepared 

For anyone who's ever taken a musical theater audition, you'll know you have to bring 16-32 bars to sing. Well for interviews, 2 minutes seems to be the magic number of time you are given to play.  Honestly, I spent the more time deciding on a piece to play for my interviews than I did preparing in any other way.  Make sure you know where that time puts you in the piece so you aren't caught with someone on the panel trying to stop you.  I have started introducing the piece by saying "I will now play you the first 1 minute 47 seconds of ____ by ____" so they know you know the parameters. Usually I was asked to play before the speaking started but in one interview I played at the end, so I had to do my water drinking ritual during the questioning portion as nonchalantly as possible. That being said, make sure it's something you can nail with minimal warm-up.  One district asked specifically for an example that shows your personal musicianship, so for me that meant tone and not something flashy.  I used that same pretty piece for all of the interviews.

You need to be prepared for questions that you might think are awkward.  One time I was asked what I thought of a colleague and that's a sliiiiippery slope (and it probably wasn't an ethical question to ask).  Now I know there's no way to prepare for that, but I also know that I should always spin questions to either show the panel what I know or say "I'm not sure but I know where to look".  I said something about how I respect their years of work and the consistency of their ensembles, but my teaching style is different in XYZ ways.  I turned it into something about me rather than getting myself into trouble by either loving or hating that person.  

I've been asked questions about movement in the general music classroom, my philosophy of music education, how I would handle specific classroom management situations and parent emails, how I would recruit for vocal and instrumental ensembles, and about fingerings and other pedagogy questions to name a bunch. One thing that no panel (oh and by the way, not all interviews are with a panel - many were one or two people) asked me about were specific grade 3 - 3.5 pieces to perform with a high school band.  Obviously I've taken enough methods courses to know appropriate pieces for each grade level - I mean for goodness sakes, I took an entire class on it and have pages and pages of this information in a binder at home! It just wasn't something that was on the tip of my tongue.  I'm in grade 2.5 sight reading mode right now...not that that's a reason to flounder on an answer but that question wasn't even on my radar.  I was talking to a colleague after the fact about how I felt like this was the weakest part of the interview and she recommended making a repertoire list for each interview.  It's a brilliant idea! Going on a beginning band interview? Make a list of 5-10 beginning band pieces for the first year.  A high school band gig but you're not sure about the ability of the students? Bring a list of a few pieces grades 2.5-4 that could sound good with a typical high school band instrumentation.  That's one of those items that will look great when you say "Well this is the list I made of pieces I like for this level".  It's one more thing to make you stand out and one more piece of information to not have to remember on the spot. I'm definitely doing this for my next interview and I'll post about how it goes!

okay two more things

1. make a list of when the postings of the jobs you applied for close so you know if you can be disappointed about not getting a call or holding on to your phone waiting for it to ring or doing both

2. check job websites daily and sort them by date because looking through 10 pages of jobs is annoying 

Looking back on this (almost done!) first year of teaching, I'm happy that my experiences have unfolded how they have; I love the diversity that I've had in my two jobs this year and I love the friendships and experiences that have come with my positions.  I'm happy that I ended up having lots of interviews and I'm happy that I am still interviewing.  I hope that these tips helped!  May the odds be ever in your favor. 

PS: Sorry you now have the music of The Lion King in your head. My B.