The Big Shift

On New Year’s Eve day, I decided that my OLW would be SHIFT.  My post included this

I want to shift the way I think about my job. I’ve had 4 jobs in 4 years since the library job was eliminated. This is the year I plan to make my final shift. Either I will get a middle school job, or I will shift my thinking about being an elementary school teacher and stay there.

Well, sometimes, shift happens.

It didn’t look promising. I asked for a transfer, but when transfers were announced in late April, I didn’t get one. Although, alter last year’s unsuccessful attempts, I had vowed never to interview again, I decided to look at  job postings and apply if something looked interesting.

Sure enough, something interesting came up right away. My former teaching partner had an 8th grade Humanities position open on her team. I applied, her principal asked mine some questions. But no interview was forthcoming.

The following week, a middles school I was interested in posted three humanities jobs. Although I had interviewed there unsuccessfully last year, I applied to all three.  The posting closed Monday. I was contacted for an interview on Tuesday. They were interviewing Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday after school.  I chose Friday. I didn’t want to stew about it all weekend.

I did all this without telling my teammates. I had informed them last year and it worried them for nothing. This year, figuring my chances were slim, I decided to tell them only if there was something to tell. So I snuck my interview outfit into my classroom and changed in the adult bathroom in a different part of the school before slipping out, unnoticed, on Friday afternoon.

There were ten people on the interview team. There were no outrageous questions. I told them about myself, my philosophy of teaching reading and writing, how I develop class rapport, what I know about teaching the gifted and how I contribute to a collaborative team. I was in and out in 30 minutes, which I took to be a bad sign.

On the drive home, I was convinced I had bombed. Again. I spoke too fast. My answers were too general and not specific enough. I didn’t say some of the brilliant things I had rehearsed in my head.  I would really never interview again.

Wednesday, my principal informed me she’d had a reference call. Could it be?

Thursday I had a message to call Human Resources. HR does everything by e-mail. The fact that a person wanted to talk to me could only be good. I called. no answer. Called again and left a message detailing when I had lunch and plan time. They called back during lunch and offered me a job teaching 6th grade Humanities in their program for the highly gifted.  I guess my interview went better than I thought.

Telling my team was awkward, but it went better than I thought. Last week, I told my class and the news when out in the school newsletter.

We have nine more days of school.  The goodbyes are a few days from now, but I’m not thinking about that yet. At this point, I am still floating on air.