This is an exciting time in education.  With smaller class sizes returning to BC classrooms, most schools will be welcoming new teachers.  As a principal, it’s an exciting time as it’s one of the first years in a long time where staffing decisions get to be made based on interviews rather than a recall process.  (To translate, that means that instead of teachers who were laid off choosing from available jobs or merging a few part time jobs, principals and vice-principals get to interview and hire people that are best for their school).

This June I had the opportunity of interviewing over 30 teachers to be considered for the nine positions at our elementary school.  I love getting the opportunity to sit down and learn from teachers who have a vast array of experience from their practicums, other schools and other districts.

After 30 plus interviews – some good, and some not so good, I came up with some pointers for teachers heading to the interview.  There are still hundreds of teaching jobs available in BC for September.  Here are some tips I would recommend to job seekers.

Top Ten Tips for Teachers

10.Love kids.  In some interviews, we could tell in an instant that the person just loved kids.  Others wanted a chance to escape a different situation.  Always tell your positive stories in the interview!

9. Ask questions.  At the end of the interview I always ask the applicant if they have questions.  Having one or two prepared shows you have put thought into the position and want to learn about the school.

8. Talk about the new curriculum. Show that your practice is current and explain how you hope to teach the competencies.

7 Tell me about your efforts beyond the classroom. How do you connect with other teachers? How to you communicate with parents? How do you bring the community in or take your kids out to the community?

6 Be a learner.  Maybe you are doing your masters, maybe you are in a book club, maybe you have something new you hope to explore.  Don’t just be an expert – show your growth mind set.

5. Be positive. Tell me what you are looking forward to.  I want to sense the vibe the kids will get from you when they step into your room each morning.

4 Be flexible.  Unfortunately schools are not built like hotels and often experience space issues when it comes to work spaces, storage etc.  Be ready to roll with it, share spaces, come up with creative solutions.

3. Teach all kids.  Tell me how you reach all learners.  Show evidence of differentiated instruction, personalized learning and share stories of the hard to reach child and how you made a connection. Remember that the kids who challenge us the most are the ones who need us the most.

2. Teach me something.  For a school to keep growing, we need to hire teachers who expand our thinking and move us forward.  Tell me something exciting you have learned that you would be willing to share.  Perhaps you have used certain technology, perhaps you had a great lesson that could be shared school wide or perhaps you have a passion outside of school that could be shared with kids.  Tell me about you!  

1. Be an interesting adult.  Above all, be interesting! We are looking or adults that kids will naturally connect with.  Just as our kids teach us about their lives through Identity day or passion projects, I want to work with teachers who have their own diverse interests that they can share with kids.  (One of our new teachers is a woodworker by craft and another just finished her black belt in karate!)  Be authentic, be genuine and be you! Be the teacher who kids look forward to spending 5 hours with each day!

Good luck new teachers – it’s an exciting time in education with smaller classes, job creation and improved learning conditions.  I can’t wait to learn together!

SEL – What is it? For parents, this may be a new acronym around school.  For educators, it is likely a familiar term but not necessarily understood. SEL or Social Emotional Learning has become a hot topic in schools, but has also faced some criticism. For some, it is viewed as a ‘buzzword’ or ‘bandwagon’ or something light and fluffy.

The new curriculum in BC focuses on much more than academic skills.  We now teach competencies rather than just curriculum. This means less memorizing, and more skill building.  Ideally students will develop the core competencies and transfer these skills into all aspects of their life.  These are the core competencies.

So – why have schools made this shift? Why are SEL skills so important?  A child’s ability to self regulate in kindergarten is a better predictor of their success in adulthood than their academic achievement in grade school.  Schools that teach SEL see an improvement in social emotional skills AND an average of 11% increase in a student’s academic performance.  Basically, when we teach kids how to recognize and manage their emotions and care for themselves and others, they are happier children and end up doing better at school. Continue reading →

Have you ever googled mid life? In search of an image to match this post, I googled the simple words ‘mid life’.  Nothing positive popped up.  Instead, 1000 images referring to a mid life crisis filled my screen.  But here’s the thing – I’m not having a crisis.  At least not today and hopefully not anytime soon. I am simply acknowledging that I am half way.

Today is my birthday.  I’m 43. Not a notable number like 40 or 50, but significant in that this means I am statistically mid life.  According to the freely accessible life expectancy calculator found on Google, I am destined to live approximately 86 years.  This means that today is roughly my half way point.  Similarly, I began teaching in 1999 – 18 years ago.  According to my pension statement, a good time to retire with an unreduced pension would be 18 years from now in  2035.  This means that I am very likely half way through my career as well. Continue reading →

When we think of learning, we often think of opportunities available to us: courses to take, books to read, conversations to have.  We reach out, we search for information and we soak up facts, opinions and ideas as a way to expand our minds.

Sometimes, learning takes a different shape. Sometimes life happens to us and we learn from our experiences. Each challenge in life is a chance to look in, to reflect, to find ourself, or to discover what we are really about.

I’ve always considered myself to be a strong person. I like to think I have grit.  I am the classic multi-tasker, the over-scheduled working mom, and generally able to have a positive mindset while managing work, family, community involvement and personal or social commitments.  I thought I was rather resilient.  And I was – until life got tough. Continue reading →

The world is changing.  So are schools.  Sometimes it’s hard to understand why.  We are creatures of habit, and sometimes, as adults, we expect schools to be the way they once were when we went to school.  After all, we turned out ok, right?

When we went to school we walked to and from school, followed rules, memorized facts and wrote tests to show what we had learned.  In fact, the rules were so engrained in our heads that we can easily finish these commands:

• Be ________!
• Sit ________!
• Don’t _____ in the halls!

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I am sure I speak for most educators, or perhaps most of society, when I say our hearts are heavy this weekend.  We don’t have to search far to find a friend or colleague influenced by Trump’s US policy discriminating against people based on their ethnicity.  I have read about friends whose vacation plans or business trips have been cancelled.  I have watched in dismay as the news covers heart breaking stories of innocent people being detained for no reason other than their race.  It seems like a bad movie: one we don’t want to watch but cannot escape.

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I want THAT kid suspended.

I have a rule of thumb I use for blogging.  If something is playing on repeat in my mind all weekend, I often feel it’s a topic worth exploring.  This weekend, I am having trouble letting go of a message I read this week.  The note was not written to me, but was written about our school.  It suggested we are not doing enough when children misbehave, and wanted punishment for THAT kid.   And I get it.  Especially as a parent.  I have two boys, and if one of them was picked on at school I would want to make sure it didn’t happen again.  I too may wonder what the follow up would be for THAT kid.  Really, my need would be for safety.  I want to send my kids to school and know they are safe from harm.  I know deep down that is also the desire of parents when they ask about THAT kid. Continue reading →

It’s summer holidays and as one lazy day rolls into the next I find myself having much more time to scroll through facebook than I do during the school year. Like most, my newsfeed consists of three things: vacation photos, Olympic updates and stories or videos of Donald Trump.

I am not a very political person and yet the current presidential election in the United States interests me. It interests me because this particular leadership race has less to do with politics and more to do with moral character. While I don’t care too much about politics, I do care about leadership, citizenship and finding good in people. Continue reading →