Yesterday I talked about meeting Marc Stine at my Aunt Dorothy’s funeral and the winding way I put in for a transfer. Today is about the interview process. I had mentioned to my principal at Montview that I might not even get an interview. I did and had to tell the principal that I needed part of an afternoon off. I wasn’t worried about taking too much time because I never used sick leave. As I write this I have 275 sick days accrued. I got to the interview about half an hour early because I am punctual. I believe that on time is fifteen minutes early. I sat in the office waiting and getting nervous. I realized that I might like this challenge. I had a massive notebook as a portfolio and a CD with everything in electronic form as well as websites I created. I knew that the position would be teaching web design and multimedia.
I came into the Assistant Principal’s office. Rob Bishop was the first person I met and he would later go on to be the principal at Rangeview. I also met Ingrid Franklin who was the department chair at the time. She had a cold and so didn’t want to shake my hand and make me sick. As we were going through the interview she looked a little distracted and I was afraid that she didn’t like me. I would later find out the real reason and it wasn’t me. I did the best I could do but since I was teaching elementary I didn’t think I had a chance. I would later find out that there were a lot of people that applied for the job. I left and beat myself up because I could have answered questions a little differently.
Again, I did not expect much and thought it was kind of fun interviewing again. It really made me evaluate what I was doing and maybe I could do some things better. About three days later I got a call from HR that they would like to set up a finalist interview. Now I was even more nervous but got there half an hour early again. I met with Marc alone and was a little panicked because my mouth went dry and I forgot everything I had ever done in the classroom. It was an interesting interview and was very conversational. He asked me about my qualifications for a couple of minutes and then talked about my high school experience. One of the things I mentioned would come back to revisit me a few weeks into the year. I then got the “trick” question. It was very straightforward forward and I answered truthfully but thought I had ruined my chances. He asked if I would rather be respected or liked by students. I answered with the analogy that I still use today. I said that I have respected many people that I did not like. I would not do anything for them out of the required. I said that if I liked somebody I would go through a brick wall for them. Respect should go hand in hand with liking someone. As a teacher, I knew that if kids liked me I was more likely to get them to learn. I also mentioned that being liked was very different from trying to be their friend.
I left this meeting with the same feeling that I had before and had all of the same doubts. I told my wife that I had given it a try but didn’t think it was in the cards. The next day I got a call from HR that they were offering me the position. I was walking on cloud nine and I haven’t come down since. Now I had to figure out my credentials but that is for another day.