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Old 05-05-2008, 10:30 AM
 
Location: Blackwater Park
1,715 posts, read 6,970,815 times
Reputation: 588

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I just graduated Saturday and I'm applying for some teaching positions that will be open in the fall. I'm highly qualified according to NCLB, but I don't know many people and don't have any teaching experience, other than student teaching. Three things that I believe I have going are:

1. 4.0 GPA

2. military veteran

3. I'm 27 (older than most applicants)

How should I emphasize these? I don't think I'm getting them across very well. I thought about saying something like "I know there might not be a correlation between having a 4.0 GPA and being an effective teacher, but I believe it shows that I am driven and can attain goals."

Is that lame or is there a better way to emphasize some of this stuff?

Thanks for any help.

FWIW, I'm primarily interested in elementary PE.
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Old 05-05-2008, 10:51 AM
 
Location: Tucson, AZ
529 posts, read 2,389,783 times
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I would definitely highlight your maturity level and real-world experience. A sense of stability is a high selling point in the education industry as well as the ability to focus on and achieve goals.
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Old 05-05-2008, 12:12 PM
 
3,086 posts, read 7,599,995 times
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Congrats on your graduation!

Personally I would focus far more on what your goals are now based on what you've learned in your student teaching and from your experience in the military. What do you hope to accomplish as a teacher? What methods did you learn that you feel can be applied to the area in which you wish to teach? For instance perhaps in the military you learned how important team work is and in student teaching you learned you need to be able to motivate many different types of learners.....so your goal is to use to use team sports to help everyone learn to work together to be successful individually....etc.

Having a 4.0 is great on the surface, however if you cannot put to practical use what you've learned then it isn't as big a plus as it might be in other fields. Also a good principal knows that learning well doesn't necessarily translate to teaching well. Something better would be to show them a particular lesson plan you devised and explain how you implemented it and show the success of it...something that you should have been responsible for doing in your student teaching.

As far as age/maturity. Those don't always go hand in hand and I think most people would more likely want to know the reason you are graduating at 27 and beginning your teaching career, which can simply be covered by revealing your military career. Otherwise, your demeanor and way of communication will show them your maturity level.

Some of the questions my daughter has been asked in her recent interviews, besides what are your goals, have been along the lines of...what can you bring to my school? Why do you want to teach here? How do you plan to handle discipline issues? and so on.

They've discussed her student teaching in depth and how she's handled certain situations including lesson planning, class control and discipline. She's brought to the discussion all the tutoring she's done in math starting back in elementary school that's continued through college, which is a better indicator of her teaching ablity than her GPA.

All her interviews have been more based on what she can do and plans to do more than anything else.
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Old 05-05-2008, 12:37 PM
 
Location: Cosmic Consciousness
3,871 posts, read 17,077,629 times
Reputation: 2702
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike in TN View Post
I just graduated Saturday

I thought about saying something like "I know there might not be a correlation between having a 4.0 GPA and being an effective teacher ...
Hi Mike and CONGRATULATIONS!!! You've made a wonderful achievement!

First rule of selling anything to anyone anywhere (which is what a resume and an interview are):
don't speak in negatives. EVER. Always support, enhance and expand your listener's or reader's POSITIVE impression of you. Take absolutely every idea you can think of, and state it as a positive. This is also a wonderful way to be a teacher: guiding kids in what to do, not what not to do, as the doing is something they can do, but the not-doing ... See the difference?

So the idea you stated (bolded above) becomes, for example:
My completion of military service and achievement of a 4.0 GPA clearly show I achieve goals.
See the difference? The negative way instills doubt; the positive way instills confidence.


The previous posters both have superb suggestions, and you'll want to incorporate their words and ideas:
"maturity" or "mature judgment" ( employers love those ideas and words)
real-world experience
stability
focus
achieve goals ("achieve" is a strong, positive action word; "attain" is less strong, more effete, not quite as effective at instilling confidence).


Measure every word you use; do it with a Thesaurus which is spectacularly helpful.
"Driven", to many people, can mean obsessive, insane, narrow-minded, inflexible. "Enthusiastic" is an entirely positive word; so is "motivated".
"Can" as in "shows that I ... can attain goals" might suggest "maybe" -- I can, but do I?? is a possible connotation. Do you? -- then just state the confident, accomplished positive. See the difference?

When communicating in any way to the school, don't use "lame" and "stuff" and words like that. It's fine and appropriate to use them with the kids, but not with the adults... until you become friends with them. Not friendly, friends. There's a feeling of a bit of intellectual elitism about teachers and school officials; try to meet them on terms they feel comfortable with, such as not using casual language.


You should create two documents: the resume, and the letter introducing yourself.
The resume should be truthful, not wordy (not even complete sentences) but packed with positive information that instills confidence and liking in the reader, such as summarizing very briefly your military history including rank, type of discharge, team leadership experience; after all, a class is a team, right?
The letter should be BRIEF, no more than two very short paragraphs.
You can Google for samples of both of these; use a style that looks cleanest, least cluttered on the page.
Your sentence about 4.0, military history, stability, mature judgment and achieving goals belongs in the letter.
STAPLE the letter on top of the resume so that neither of them strays from the other (be certain to put your name and address on both papers).

RUN EVERYTHING YOU DO THROUGH SPELLCHECK BEFORE YOU PRINT ANYTHING. College graduates and teachers are supposed to be educated, so they're supposed to spell correctly -- which you did in your entire post.


Mike in TN, you've got everything going for you! Know that Life will show you the best your path has to offer you. Go forth in joy!!
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Old 05-06-2008, 05:56 AM
 
518 posts, read 2,527,806 times
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i'm currently an elementary pe teacher. from what i have learned, the most important thing that the administrators that interviewed me wanted to know was how i teach, how i interact with students, what a typical lesson for me would look like and how i could incorporate other subjects into pe (ex: find heart rate during exercise for 15 seconds, multiply by 4, give a writing homework assignment about their favorite physical activity for whatever season it is).
I brought samples of lesson plans/unit plans from my student teaching to my interview, and when they asked a question, i tried to find a way to relate it to one of my lessons and i would hand out a lesson plan and show them what i did.
not sure if that got me the job, but i think it helped to show them what i do instead of just telling them about it.
i hear they also like pictures of the teacher interacting with students during class.
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Old 05-06-2008, 05:22 PM
 
Location: Drury Lane
825 posts, read 2,814,029 times
Reputation: 252
Mike....keep in mind that the "chain of command" in education is nothing like what you experienced in the military. You may experience a degree of culture shock.
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Old 05-06-2008, 08:36 PM
 
Location: Blackwater Park
1,715 posts, read 6,970,815 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by muffinman View Post
Mike....keep in mind that the "chain of command" in education is nothing like what you experienced in the military. You may experience a degree of culture shock.
(in Peter Griffin voice) Go on...
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