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I will start my second year teaching in a private school this Fall. I have ten years experience in public schools. I am unfamiliar with how to renegotiate my teacher's contract in the private school setting. Any pointers or suggestions?
by Anonoymous
Mar 10, 2012
Thinking of taking a job from out of state. Can anyone tell me what they think of the schools, class size, etc.. Also, are there any teachers who relocated who can tell me what they provide for relocation assistance. I am very excited about the opportunity and if it helps I am an experience special educaiton teacher.
Hey ladies and gents,
My question is this: Will I be able to find a job as a middle school social studies teacher in Maryland? I have a good GPA, military experience, and I'm a bit older than most of my peers at school. Will any of this actually help me?
Here is my background info:
I'm currently an undergraduate at UMBC a...See MoreHey ladies and gents,
My question is this: Will I be able to find a job as a middle school social studies teacher in Maryland? I have a good GPA, military experience, and I'm a bit older than most of my peers at school. Will any of this actually help me?
Here is my background info:
I'm currently an undergraduate at UMBC and I am working on obtaining my B.A. in History and my certification to teach secondary education. Ideally I would like to work at a middle school in or around Baltimore City/County or Anne Arundel County. I'm not exactly your typical undergrad. I'm 35yrs old,I spent the 90's playing in bad punk bands, spent4 years in the military, and then landed a job working in the mortgage industry (bad idea there!. Through all of this I've remained thoroughly unfullfilled. I was the first person to even graduate from high school in my family. I came from an impoverished, dysfunctional back ground. Come to think of it, I'm still poor so I guess that some things never change! :) Blah, blah, blah, etc.... essentially becoming a teacher is extremely important to me. I'm very personally vested in this.
I begin the first phase of my teaching internship this upcoming fall. I'll then intern full time during the spring 2013 semester. To say that I am nervous is an understatement! I'm more nervous about some things that my adviser told me. She basically told me a year ago that I should get another major, and that teaching jobs were near impossible to find. This terrifies me. I'm married, I have a six year old son, and my GI Bill (which is how I pay for my school and my rent) runs out after this fall. If I don't get a job right after graduating my dream will most probably be toast. My question is this: Will I be able to find a job as a middle school social studies teacher in Maryland? I have a good GPA, military experience, and I'm a bit older than most of my peers in school. Will any of this actually help me?
Thanks in advance for anyone willing to share their wisdom, tips, etc...
Jason
My wife is considering trying to switch counties in Maryland. Her current county has withheld giving actual raises for the past few years.
Would her new county be likely to pay what she is supposed to be getting or just what her current county is actually paying?
Does anybody know what it will take to work in Maryland and Virginia if I have a Texas teaching certificate. I have a Special Education prek-12 self contained certificate, Elementary 1-6, and a Counselor.
Hey all!!! I am studying for the Praxis II(Special Ed) exam--any advice on what books are the best to use in studing for this exam? Or recommend any programs or sites that could help? Thank you SO much in advance!
by Jim from Nebraska**
May 24, 2012
So I am really confused and need advice. I applied for a teaching license through my state (not Maryland)for math teaching and business teaching through my state's Alternative Route to Licensure program. I was granted the license provisionally...which means the next step was I had to find a job and after that I take a few more classes...I'm also go...See MoreSo I am really confused and need advice. I applied for a teaching license through my state (not Maryland)for math teaching and business teaching through my state's Alternative Route to Licensure program. I was granted the license provisionally...which means the next step was I had to find a job and after that I take a few more classes...I'm also going to have elementary education added to it by August in addition to the above and speak 4 languages...though I'm not as fluent in Japanese and Vietnamese as I am in Spanish...I wouldn't be comfortable teaching them but I can do Spanish fine. If I talk with someone in the other languages they often think I'm fluent but if it gets technical then sometimes I have to slow down and get lost.
I did an interview recently at a dual immersion school for a math & science Spanish teaching job and I thought the initial interview went well, but the guy said the actual classroom evaluation is where it counts and that I had to go the next day to be evaluated by his boss teaching in the classroom for math at a dual immersion school. He did warn me that his boss is very "Detailed" (he rolled his eyes) and can be really picky. They told me to prepare 2 lesson plans, one for math and one for a science class with the math lesson plan scheduled for 10 AM and the science lesson plan scheduled for 2 PM. The times were based on what they could do not by choice; there were other classes for other subjects for other times and it wasn't that big of a school. I was told the class scheduled for the next day could be mostly English because they were older and that their there is more Spanish focus when they are younger, therefore I had to prove that I spoke Spanish fluent enough to use it in the classroom but not necessarily the whole time. I made sure ahead of time what exactly I was going to be evaluated on and proceeded to prepare to do those things.
I had spent the day before asking everything I possibly could and then some to prepare and then spent about 5 or 6 hours after that preparing and doing everything I knew how to do until I went to bed, no tv no break just doing everything I could to overkill and be as badass as I could attempt to be though I knew I wasn't a veteran and was trying to be fine with just getting a stamp of approval and get hired. The whole point of coming to that interview was the phone message I'd gotten the day before was that the guy only had me and one other candidate that even qualified for the position and that there was more than one position available. This influenced me taking work off the day before and everything took so much time on both days that I missed my day job for 2 whole days. Which if I'd known how it would've gone I wouldn't have even bothered...
I've tutored math a lot so it went smoothly and they even told me it was a great job. That was for the 10 AM Math class which I am stronger in Math than Science. I've tutored for about 3 or 4 years now so the subject matter just flows with me on Math...though I don't have ARL for science but that's what they wanted so I decided to give it a shot.
Then I went to prepare for the 2 PM class, though I had my powerpoint presentation and some class interaction activities ready ( which I also did with the Math class ). I was suddenly informed right after the other one that my class was to be entirely in Spanish, which was different from what they'd told me the day before. If I'd been told that then I would've had all the Powerpoints and even the worksheets in Spanish, not English, and that the information I'd been given the day before wasn't right and that teacher who told me that was wrong...all this about 2 hours before the 2nd class room evaluation. I had been given the understanding the day before to have the class about 90/10 or 80/20 in favor of English...not the other way around...I thought I just had to prove I can speak Spanish and use it in the classroom.
I'm fluent Spanish so most of that isn't a big deal but the lesson was planned ahead of time as "How hereditary traits influence how an organism survives in its environment". This means defining terms in both Spanish and English for some of the following vocabulary: gene, chromosome, punnett's squares, Mendeleian genetics, gene therapy, genetic engineering, alleles, meiosis, physical traits, behavioral traits, etc. Even a completely fluent speaker like myself and people native in Spanish might have to do a double take and then take a few minutes before having all of that done, and doing it on the spot how many people could do that, and I DID it. I went through the whole powerpoint and my worksheets to translate the vocabulary and have it ready so that in a couple of hours it'd be ready for the next class.
Then I'm in the teacher's lounge waiting and suddenly one of the other teacher's comes in. It's a pretty girl teacher this time and she says they changed the schedule because of an assembly. But the day before I'd asked and checked with them at least 3 times on the time and I had been under the understanding that if you clarify it that many times it ought to be clear that that was what it's supposed to be.
So she says the schedule has changed and that they want to know if they can move it up a bit from the previously scheduled time. I then ask move up to when? She responds to 'now'. I was a bit surprised, and asked if she meant like in like a few minutes or like now now. She said that the class had started already. This to me was very unfair because I've lost the chance to be prepared and have things setup before I go in, which was my primary line of defense. The class had been sitting outside the classroom in the halls with no around when the girl teacher and I got there with no supervision and they were friendly to me but completely riled up from sitting outside in the hall.
The girl went in with me and I started to setup my preparations. She tried to leave but then I managed to flag her and make sure how and where everything was before she left, but if I hadn't been able to do that I wouldn't have had a chance to even start. By this time the class is rowdy and none of the things I'd planned and used for the other class were usable because there wasn't opportunity to prepare in advance. I had flashcards and was going to give them at the door to each of the kids and have them put their name on them, what they like to do, and something unique about them and help me to interact with them more (which was what I did for the morning class and it helped tons)...I also had been told to make sure the objective was placed on the board but there wasn't enough space on the board in this small classroom for the projector and the whiteboard in this class and then a large number of the kids couldn't even speak Spanish yet I was told I HAD to do the lesson in Spanish. I'd also been told they want to see someone interacting with the class and moving around the room and I did that on both classes. Not only that, but when they stopped to take the kids to the assembly the other regular teacher couldn't even get them to shut up and had to threaten them with disciplinary action and when it was time to leave she and the principal who had come in late also had to threaten to suspend 2 kids. So they themselves couldn’t even control this bunch.
I was then observed by not only the principals's boss for much of the class but the other guy that they were also interviewing for this school also got to come in and watch my class. But I’d been told he was going to be teaching for a different age group earlier…the elementary kids and I would’ve been doing the 8th graders
When the second class was done (6th graders), I was told by the evaluator that yeah I did a pretty good job but that I didn't interact with the class...which was a bunch of crap because the only time I was in front of the room and not in the middle of the kids in a semicircular desk formation was to click the mouse to move the slides on powerpoint. They also said I needed to set the ground rules right from the get go and that was at fault. I did agree with them on that but given the situation of them changing my timetable on the spot it felt like a trap from the beginning because they took away my chance to be professionally setup and greet the kids before they even got in the classroom and control how they settled into the class.
Then I was even more stunned by the guy saying he wasn't going to hire me because a genuine licensee takes precedence over an alternative route to licensure candidate and that they had decided to take the other guy who I'd seen earlier. What's also messed up is the whole time that other guy had a deer in the headlights look and he looked scared and the whole time I was so excited about teaching and grateful that I didn't have that fear and was confident. So it sounds like there wasn't 2 positions like they'd originally said. The principal seemed like he was really trying to help me and it seemed like he wanted me to have the spot but his boss and the way things were changed up felt like a power play maybe between the 2 of them at my expense and doesn't feel right. Or maybe the whole time it was just a good cop bad cop routine. When I went to leave I chatted with him for a few minutes and then another teacher came up and I spoke with both her and him for a few minutes. She asked how it went and I joked that they threw me in a room with a bunch of Satan’s clones and she then laughed and said, oh they put you in the 6th grade room huh?. Why is it she automatically thought correlated that particular group with being the spawn of Satan unless everyone knew the class they’d thrown me into was purposefully the worst class in the school? The other guy wasn’t given the 6th graders from hell…and I was…
They are human and trying to just live but I don't like how that was done at all. I have been trying to get into teaching for 4 years now and hardly even get a chance at interviews and my resume is pretty impressive but mostly non-teaching. I had another interview last year at a different school where a teacher in the same subject interfered with my interview and because of it I didn’t get that position but probably would’ve otherwise. What the heck, if speak 4 languages, and have a bachelor’s degree with approval for alternative route of certification why the heck is it like going to war just to into teaching?
The principal told me to email him back in a week and he’d try to get the other guy to work with me, which I appreciate but I don’t know if he’s just saying that to close the door nicely at this point. By chance anyone who knows me sees this I've put a fake name and fake state to protect my privacy.
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