Film at 11

jobs

In between cleaning out closets and partying hearty in San Francisco, I have been offered interviews for no less than four different teaching jobs. Loyal readers will note that this is considerably more than the zero job offers I had before. (Note to disloyal readers: I am not quitting my job at DeAnza, which I love. I am merely trying to supplement my meager income. And to get back to teaching ESL. But I digress).

I'm not entirely sure how people get jobs. I am learning, however, that the Internet is much more useful than the newspaper. For any starving teachers who might be reading, I recommend teachers.net, and idealist.org as good starting points. They continue to serve me well.

Random factoid: I was interviewed for my job at DeAnza at 3 p.m. on September 11th. I learned once I was hired that my dean, who was career military, had lost several friends who worked in the Pentagon. He hired me anyway. Check out his website here. The dean's only shortcoming, in my opinion, is his propensity for hearing me sing the Whiffenpoof song. If only more people know about "Antoinette Birby" and "Noah Webster," the Yale community would be much better represented.

Anyway, back to jobs. The other thing I've noticed is that applying for teaching jobs seems to be much more rigorous than applying for jobs in other career fields. This is _not_ to say that applying for jobs is ever fun, but I'm not sure how many other fields require you to submit complete sets of transcripts (undergraduate and graduate), a written evaluation by a supervisor, write multiple essays, take a timed writing test, demonstrate your practice, and answer fifteen pre-scripted questions from a panel which is not allowed, by law, to ask anything else. This seems a bit much.

Even though the process sucks, I am starting to get a feel for what schools are like and where I'd actually enjoy working. Still to come: Meredith's rant on the appaling inequities inflicted upon part-time college faculty.