As the year draws to a close, some of you may be considering looking for new jobs for next fall. Perhaps you’re moving, perhaps you want to try a new grade level, perhaps your current school just isn’t a good fit.
Math teacher and blogger Dan Meyer is looking for a new job, and has put together his dream criteria. Here are a few from his really interesting list that particularly stood out to me:
a faculty which sees student failure as clear indication of school failure. I want to work with people whose first reaction to below-average common assessment results is, “how can I learn from my colleagues?” not, “the assessment was invalid because I’m pretty sure I know a little something about teaching.”
a math department stocked with teachers young, old, and everywhere in between. The next youngest teacher in my current department is fifteen years my senior with two kids. I dig all my coworkers but, in many ways, we don’t relate.
veterans who step up and take the tough preps for new teachers. This isn’t self-serving. Lump me into the veterans and give me three preps, fine, but I want to work with people who treat new teachers better than an expendable, renewable commodity, who understand the most remedial classes need the best teachers.
Dan’s readers had a variety of comments and suggestions that are also worth reading, including:
Have lunch with the kids. Interview them. Ask who the best teachers in the buildings are. Seek those teachers out. And interview *them*. (#6)
Arrive early for your interview — not conspicuously early, but early enough so that you need to wait in a public place for 15-20 minutes. Be a fly on the wall and watch the interactions that occur in that space. Who talks to you? Who doesn’t? You can get a pretty good sense of the tenor of a school by observing interactions. (#9)
I’d look for either a small school or a school with small learning communities. One of the most powerful tools I have is working with teachers who work with the same students. (#20)
TEN readers, what advice might you give to someone thinking of changing schools?
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