Yes!

Now that the sports post is out of my system, I can tell you about my wild and wacky week, which just came to a thrilling conclusion. Actually, I encourage you to read the tail end of the last post, even if you don't care about sports. I went into a tangent on the future of news media, if that sounds interesting to you.

These past two weeks have been a fantastic learning experience, and not because I've been stuck in a classroom doing math for six hours a day. I went to a hiring fair last Tuesday, and I had the chance to deliver my spiel to a number of administrators who in turn told me about their school. I came away impressed by two schools, both of them very new and very different from each other. The future of education in New York City seems to be going in a direction where large dysfunctional schools break up into smaller themed schools. Any given high school building could be housing five or six individual schools inside of it. Both of the schools in which I was interested were smaller "themed" schools.

One school, for which I held my first demo lesson last Friday, made architecture and global studies its theme. Students are evaluated not only on their class work, but also on two large projects they present to a panel of judges each year. Their goal is to provide students with an interdisciplinary background and a confidence in public speaking. I was thoroughly impressed by the principal, a former Teaching Fellow who has a good idea about where he wants the school to go. He has his work cut out for him; the school received a "D" rating from the Department of Education last year (this is his first year as principal). However, I liked his direction, and I was prepared to sign up when he offered me the job on Wednesday. I was completely surprised. My interview with him was my first real interview, and I had no idea how to gauge my performance. I guess it went well.

The only reason I didn't accept on Wednesday was because I had an interview with another school on Tuesday. This was for the Bronx Academy of Letters, another small school with an emphasis on writing and verbal skills. I know I'm teaching math, but needless to say this school appealed to me. I was optimistic because they reached out to me to set up the interview. I arrived at the school Tuesday morning, looking pristine in my polished shoes, sleek dress pants, and sweat-stained undershirt. It was about 98 degrees outside on Tuesday, which translates to about 120 degrees in the subway. I had to take off my suit coat and my shirt to survive. I changed into my interview attire in the school's bathroom, and I must say I was looking dapper.

Quick comment: there should be a law against wearing suits when it's hotter than 90 degrees. It's just not right.

Anywho, I nailed the interview on Tuesday. I was prepared, I was clear, it felt good. I didn't have to teach a lesson, so I had the opportunity to sit in on a class. The whole thing was pretty hastily thrown together, and I only spoke to the assistant principal. She told me she would contact me later in the day about coordinating a follow up interview and a teaching demo. Later in the day passed, as did Wednesday, and I still hadn't heard from her. Then I received a call from the principal from the other school offering me the job. I asked him for a couple more days to make my decision.

On Thursday I checked a voicemail during my lunch break from class. It was the principal of the Academy of Letters. At the hiring fair I was given a photocopy of a magazine article written about this principal. She was an all-American lacrosse player at Yale, a high-ranking staffer for Bill Bradley's presidential campaign, a successful history teacher, and the founder of a school designed to prepare students for college and beyond by emphasizing writing skills. She's written a book about voting and the political process. She's sort of a big deal.

I returned her call, and she asked me to come in for an interview either later that day or the next day. I had my final for the math course and an introduction to my graduate studies, so Friday was out. It would have to be Thursday afternoon. I lobbied with my professor, and I was able to leave early from class. I shuttled across Manhattan on a bus and made my way back to the school. I met with the chair of the math department as well as several other math teachers. I was getting the impression that I had a chance at nabbing this job.

I was led back into principal Joan Sullivan's office, where she had to leave abruptly to tend to some other matter. I was left alone with a precocious sixth grader eating a slice of cake given to him by one of his teachers. I asked him about the school, his studies, how old he was, wanting to be polite. I was taken by a wise-beyond-his-years quality to his voice, especially since he was a particularly diminutive sixth grader. He showed me a copy of a free-form poem he had written earlier in the day, titled "Profane." It was pretty good.

Principal Sullivan walked in, sat down, and before her back reached the spine of her chair she had asked me the first question of our interview. Jacob the precocious sixth grader remained in the room. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a buttoned-down short sleeve shirt. I was loving every second of this.

Ms. Sullivan was everything I had expected of her from the magazine article--intelligent, direct, intense, but caring. She reminded me very much of Mrs. Goethals, my extraordinary junior year English teacher, unrivaled by any professor I had at Northwestern. She let Jacob sit next to her, and she let him ask me several questions. Unsurprisingly, his questions cut straight to the core of what's hardest about being a teacher, the things that great teachers overcome. I'm not much of a bullshitter, so I wasn't put off by his presence or his questions. You can't put anything past a kid, so I didn't try to. I answered him thoughtfully and candidly. I don't know if he was planted there on purpose, or if Ms. Sullivan thought he might as well stick around before meeting with his mother.

I came away from the interview feeling I could have expressed myself in a way truer to my thoughts and feelings. I might have just been hard on myself because I realized how badly I wanted this job. I also used to have the feeling that I never did enough or showed enough promise to Mrs. Goethals, and I think Ms. Sullivan had the same effect on me. Regardless of how it went, I had a blast. It was an ideal interview setting for me.

This was going to be a long-shot because the Academy of Letters is an "A" school. They have tremendous standards for their students despite being a Bronx public school like so many other struggling institutions. Apparently they also hire very carefully. I told Ms. Sullivan that I had another offer on the table, and she told me she would let me know about their decision by today.

I breezed through my math immersion final and at 12:05 I received a call from the assistant principal of the Bronx Academy of Letters offering me the teaching position there. I didn't give a demo lesson, I wore jeans to my final interview, it's one of the best public schools in the city, and they gave me a job. Whoa. I accepted in about half a second. I'll write more about the school at a later time. All I have to say right now is "whoa."

There's one more thing I wanted to say before I sign off. Earlier today, NBC's Tim Russert died of a heart attack at the age of 58. I don't know if anyone out there is a big fan, but he was the host of "Meet the Press" and the chief of the Washington Bureau. Like the way your taste buds develop to learn to like certain foods, it took me awhile to develop an interest in politics. Tim Russert made that transition palatable for me. "Meet the Press" is one of the few television shows I watch consistently, and I always went to Russert for election coverage. He had an uncanny knowledge of politics and an unmistakable twinkle in his eye. You knew when he was excited about something, which has pretty much been all the time since the primaries started. I loved watching his face light up when he talked about strategies and big issues. I cared about whatever he said, just because of how he said it. He was a tremendous journalist, and I'm certainly going to miss him.