Interviewing

Interviewing sucks. There's no way around it. If you're lucky enough to get an interview, you have to dress up, sit there for a half an hour before they take you, and pray you don't screw up when you get in there. And even then there is no guarantee that you get the job because there are probably 30 other candidates that are going through the exact same thing. When you have gone on as many interviews as I have, you start to get the hang of it. You put on your suit, you know, the one that you have worn to EVERY interview, the one that is obviously your "Lucky Suit", pray you can find the school, sit in the office and wait. They tell you to get there early to give a good impression, but my question is, "a good impression for who?" The people you are interviewing with NEVER finish early, so they are not going to see you unless you start a fire in the lobby and they rush out the door to escape, to find you patiently waiting there, portfolio in hand, grinning broadly. Better yet, you should be assisting in the efforts to put out the fire, so that they know that you can keep your head in stressful and dangerous situations. This most directly applies teaching middle school.

Then, when the door to the interview room opens, you're faced with one of the 2 most awkward situations that you face that day: The previous candidate exiting the room. You're forced to watch as they shake his/her hand and thank him/her for their time. They are still trying to desperately make a good impression, so, they are throwing their whole body into that hand shake to be sure that the other person can feel sincerity seeping from their sweaty palms. You size up the previous candidate, focusing on their faults (weak ankles, hook nose, went to a crappy college...yeah, you can just tell) and decide whether or not you could take them if this came to a throw down. Then, they walk by you. The grin they had seconds earlier is a distant memory, their eyes narrow, and they give you a look that says, "Bring it Bitch." It's even more intense if you know the person. Yeah, that happens. Music is such a focused content area and there aren't many jobs (no fucking kidding), so you're bound to run into someone you know. When that happens, every memory you have of that person flashes in front of you and you desperately scan for something you can use. As they leave and your face contorts into the unnatural grin you practiced in the mirror at home that morning, you sigh with relief, thinking to yourself, "If they get the job, I will just anonymously mail the school the picture I took of them at Phi Iota Mu's Cinco Di Mayo party, and we'll see how long they last there."

At last, after the drive there, the waiting in the lobby, and the awkward "I"m gonna cut yo face" look, you meet the interviewing committee. If you're smart, you asked the secretary who would be in the interview when they called so you know who to play your strengths to. You block out the fact that the Principal has a weird face mole, the Assistant Principal has lipstick on her teeth, and the other music teachers in the room all went to Ithaca, and you try to do your best. They ask you all of the standard questions, one of them being, "Tell us about yourself", which is, in fact, not a question at all. You tell them where you lived growing up, where you went to school, your major, other places you taught, and all about that summer you spent in a 3rd world country curing the natives of their malaria with your badass piano skills. After all, it really is "all about the children"

Then, they throw you a situational question. It's something like, "What do you do if you're in the middle of chorus and you see "Kenny" punch "Bobby" when he thought you were not looking?" You immediately suppress the urge to make the joke, "Well, that depends, do you like Bobby?" and dive into a lengthy response in which you perfectly handle the situation and it ends with the two boys hugging while the resolution music from "Full House" plays in the background. You nailed it!

Then they ask you about your philosophy on your subject area. Of course, you think your subject area is important, so you want to tell them all of the statistics you know about how music helps kids learn and tell them that without music man would cease to exist. DON'T! They don't care. They want to you answer with something that resembles "music is for everyone" and for you to explain how you can relate to the kids with your superior educational prowess and expertise.

And then, almost without fail, some jackass, usually an administrator who didn't even know who the previous music teacher was because they have never attended a concert in their life, asks you, "So, what 'modern" tunes are you going to do?" If you successfully resist the temptation to leap across the desk and shake them until they develop some musical taste, you say that you are "open to anything as long as it is appropriate and has an educational value." There is nothing else you can say. Administrators love the word "appropriate" because that means Suzie's mom isn't going to call them about their daughter singing a Ke$ha tune where she was given "the bottle of Jack" line as a solo. This also means that if you get the job, you're going to have to order every "Glee" arrangement ever published to placate the administration until you have tenure and tell them to shove it.

As the interview concludes you try desperately to find an opening in which you can show them the beautiful portfolio that you have constructed. My portfolio is in a 1 1/2 inch black binder, filled with teaching evaluations, recommendation letters, sample lesson plans, instructional adaptations for students with special needs, and pictures of me teaching. If you construct your portfolio correctly, it will have taken you hours, everything will be sealed behind plastic page protectors, and you will end with feeling like you are the best thing to happen to education since they arrested Mary Kay Letourneau. Your blood, sweat, and tears went into this thing and, half the time, they don't even look at it. They didn't budget for "portfolio time" and you bitterly shove it back in your bag, wishing that you could slam their head between your PERFECTLY PLACED PLASTIC PAGES. If you are lucky and they do look at it, it is usually a 30 second glance during which they look at your pictures, scratch their head at the sample music you included that they can't read, and then pass it to the next sorry bastard who takes it like a grenade, because, they too, have no idea what any of this crap means.

There is a 50/50 chance you'll be allowed to demonstrate your skills in an interview. Sometimes you get asked to play or sing, or both. And really excellent school districts have you give a demo lesson and interview you afterwards. That was my last district. I taught 2nd grade for a period, during which I taught them a song, a hand percussion part, and we began a 3 note Orff xylophone ostinato pattern to accompany the piece. Boom, roasted! In the interview, I sang my aria (Candide's Lament from Candide, so that I could show them my emotional connection to my art form) and then I played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata starting on page 2 because one of my hard ass interviewers wanted to make sure I could stop and start in the hardest part of the piece (which I could, because I am the white Ray Charles...that can see). In my most recent interview I asked if they would like to hear me sing or play something. They looked at me like I had 3 heads. Apparently the committee was oblivious to the fact that there is a performance aspect to music that doesn't involve turning on the radio and lip syncing to the latest Rhianna single. This showed me exactly how much they valued their music program, as did the fact that the general music room was in the basement, next to an old art room and the shop wing. I was thrilled at the prospect of discussing sonata form accompanied by the scream of the jig saw in the next room. Maybe I would get lucky and could get in on some of that spice rack making action (not a sex joke).

As the interview concludes, they ask you if you have any questions for them. In my experience, people love to talk about how awesome they are (i.e. this blog) so I usually lob them a few easy questions like, "What is your program's biggest asset?" Again, this is not a sex joke, it is an opportunity for them to brag about their wonderful school and they will remember your interest and how good you made them feel. When their heads have deflated (for the last time, this is NOT a sex joke), I usually follow up with something like "Are there opportunities for cross curricular collaboration (say THAT 5 times fast)?" This shows that you have an interest in the other subject areas. This, of course, is a lie, because those bastards never get cut from the budget, so you don't give 2 shits about them. However, this makes you seem cooperative, like the other teachers can come to you and give you ideas and help you relate to what they are going in class. The day someone comes into my classroom with an idea about what I can do to relate to THEM, is the day I burn down the school, starting with their room...yeah, I'm talking to you 7th grade science.

Then after 25 minutes of you answering their questions, smiling politely as they spit on you when they talk, they bid you good day and almost never tell you when you should expect to hear from them. You give them each a firm hand shake and call them by name (oh yeah, you're supposed to remember these assholes' names. They can call you Keith instead of Kyle, but God forbid you forget that is "Anferony instead of Anthony" (yes, that is from Mean Girls)) and turn to leave. Cue awkward moment #2 when you see the person interviewing after you. Even if you fart while laughing at one of their jokes and it gets really quiet, or you ask the woman if she is pregnant and she is not, you walk out of that interview like you were the shit (hopefully not from that fart you may have made in the room). You NEVER want to give the person after you the impression that you didn't dazzle them with your personality and qualifications. You want your look of happiness and joy to haunt them as they entered the room you just OWNED for the last 30 minutes.

Then you drive home analyzing everything you did, and the longer you drive, the more faults you find. You should have laughed harder when he made that joke about the ukulele being a midget guitar, or not have looked so appalled when his hairpiece slid off as he stood up. And once you're home, you wait...and wait...and wait...for your phone to ring. Of course, it DOES ring, but it's just your Mom calling to see how it went and to scold you for not returning the 37 missed calls she made while you were in the interview. But in my experience, they don't call. They choose the teacher with the masters degree, even if it is from Devry, or the younger candidate that you don't have to pay as much, or the hot one, because some people are not smart enough to see that having a big chested woman wave her arms in front of a group of adolescent boys could be potentially problematic. And then, you do it all over again, waiting for the interview where they ask you "what happened on 30 Rock last night" or "how do you correctly conjure a corporeal patronus" so that you can really show them what you're made of.

Here's to hoping!