Needed, Good Teacher, Inquire Within

Here is my pal Sneedlet helping me fix a chair at his mom's house. Notice the intense concentration. When I was having lunch today, the 88 year-old guy that I wrote about last week came in and sat next to my friend and me. His name is Charlie and he is a retired Army officer. He tried teaching and eventually went back to work for the government. He got out of teaching because he said teachers were unwilling to change anything about the way they had always done things. We were talking about teaching today and it got me to thinking about my ill-fated teaching career. In the mid-nineties it became apparent that there would be a lot of shake up in the telecommunications business, so I decide that I would get into teaching. I always wanted to be a teacher, but the realities of life led me in a different direction. I went back to school parttime for about 4 years before getting my elementary certification. I successfully completed my student-teaching, passed the state exam, and was soon the proud holder of a provisional elementary license from the state of Arizona. I was declared fit to teach K-8. In the fall of 2001 my employer offered to give me a year's salary if I would go away, and away I went. I applied for a bunch of teaching jobs, but never got so much as an interview. The recession was not the time for a 50 year-old guy to being going head-to-head with fresh young kids for the few available jobs. The lovely Mrs. Sneed used her contacts to get me an interview with a principal she knows and he seemed real interested in me, but never called me back. My student-teaching supervisor got me hooked up with his girl friend who was the principal at a local elementary, but one of my friends called and advised me that I better not take the job, because the principal was insane. I turned that one down. One afternoon, in early October 2002, I was watching the People's Court and I got a call from the assistant principal of a middle school. Around here middle school is grades 6 through 8. He needed a teacher for the In-House suspension program for the balance of the year. He said it was an opportunity to get my foot in the door. I later found out that the in-house kids had chased the old teacher out of the building and probably out of teaching altogether. I spent the balance of the 2002-2003 school year locked in a room with this unholy mob. It was actually a good job because they knew I wasn't going to get fazed by their antics. As I grew in the job it became pretty satisfying. My room was near the counseling offices and the counselors must have attended a conference where the theme was about changing the status quo. They all had posters on their office doors that said, "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got." This slogan spread around the school and there were signs repeating it posted around. This will become important later. I made friends with a 6th grade science teacher, who was an older guy too. An opportunity opened up for the next school year for another 6th grade science job. My friend Tom put in a good word for me. The assistant principal put in a good word for me and said the job was mine for the taking. He said that they did have to have an interview process, just as a formality. They said they could work around the fact that I don't have a degree in any of the sciences. After all, its 6th grade for Pete's sake. The day of the interview and I eagerly anticipated dazzling them with my brilliance, my maturity and my dependability. The committee was composed of the principal, a woman who has the personality of school paste, a 24 year-old science teacher who got the job because her mother taught at the school (my analysis), my friend Tom and the assistant principal. I figured it was at worst 2-2 if they voted on me. The first question was from the kid. "Tell us about your experience teaching science." It went downhill from there. I tried in vain to explain my qualification, even making a joke about having aced 6th-grade science. Finally, I said, "Based on your questions, I wouldn't even hire me." They stared. I didn't hear from the committee, but 2 weeks later I got a letter from the district telling me that I hadn't gotten the job. It really ticked me off to hear via letter. I went to the assistant principal's office and unloaded on him. I worked 5 days a week, 50 feet from his office and they sent me a damn letter. He didn't see the problem. He sat me down and explained that the biggest thing that I lacked was that I didn't sound like a teacher. He advised me to learn more teacher jargon. That was it. It wasn't my lack of formal science training,my excellent work in herding the miscreants counted for little, my life experience was unimportant. The deciding factor was teacher jargon. I am not making this up. I motioned to the sign in his window and said, "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got." He was unimpressed. The job went to a 23 year-old new teacher. I have given up on teaching. I am too old to fight the establishment anyway. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong and sometimes just full of it. Tag: Daily Life Personal Finance Humor