**Question 1: Nearly all Fellows are hired to teach in ‘high-need’ schools that are located in low-income communities. Why do you want to teach in a high-need school, and what experiences have prepared you for the challenges of teaching in a high-need school? **
In a way, the students at high-need schools are the ones with the most potential. For on average, students at high-need schools are more likely to have potential that is yet untapped, due to the social and economic factors that mark their schools as “high-need”. For this reason, the prospect of teaching at a high-need school that gives me the greatest sense of potential contribution.
I have taught both gifted students and troubled students. (Not that these two categories don’t sometimes overlap!) There was certainly a sense of satisfaction to be found in teaching the gifted kids. For the student to anticipate my questions and come up with smart, creative responses that manage even to engage me, the teacher, intellectually—this is a pretty fun experience. Yet it was when teaching the troubled students—the ones who believed they hate to read and who saw education as a pointless and discouraging process—that I came to really know what it means to accomplish something when teaching. One of my students began classes with me believing he had no hope of understanding what people wanted from him when it came to reading a book and discussing it in class. But by the end of our time together, this student was sheepishly admitting to me that he’d “read ahead” and that he really enjoyed our text (Of Mice and Men). He was independently coming up with great, creative and plausible answers to our discussion questions. He was able to take my criticisms of his essays in stride and think about them constructively, improving his writing as a result. Teaching this troubled student gave me a true sense of accomplishment. Something changed in that student, for the better, and I had something to do with that.
Of course there are many kinds of students at every school. But I do expect to encounter a large proportion of frustrated, discouraged, or otherwise troubled students at a high-need school. And I am excited about the teaching opportunities this presents. Realistically, I understand that I will not always see for myself an ending to their stories as happy as the one I just summarized. But I also know that I do not necessarily need to see the results every time. The sewing of seeds is as valuable as—perhaps more valuable than—the later harvest.
**Question 2: The most important responsibility of a teacher is to ensure high academic achievement for all students. Explain how a skill or ability that you possess will help you ensure high academic achievement for all students and provide an example of how you have effectively demonstrated this skill or ability in the past. **
Teaching writing is one of the most important things an English teacher has to offer to his students. The ability to write clearly and thoughtfully is a skill that will serve a student in all of her other academic endeavors, and moreover in almost any post-academic vocation the student may choose.
Providing effective constructive feedback to written work—feedback that helps the student learn how to examine and improve her own writing—is key to the teaching of writing. And over the years, as I’ve worked as an English teacher, a Philosophy instructor, and a Writing tutor, my skills for writing feedback have grown, and indeed I have developed some techniques based on them. For example, I divide my critiques into four categories—mechanics, phraseology, organization, and logic—and I color-code my comments to make the distinction between these categories clear. This is a simple idea, but it is very effective in helping the student organize his own understanding of the criticisms. Instead of being overwhelmed, the student can clearly see a way to broadly divide up the criticisms and fit them easily into the overall project of understanding how the paper could be improved. Invariably, students report a very positive experience with this system, and teachers who have seen my system at work for their students have even recommended that other students come to see me for feedback on their papers.
In my feedback, I focus on asking the students questions about what they’ve written, helping them to discover in themselves the ability to ask their own questions about why they write what they do. This helps them learn to write thoughtfully and clearly, whether the format is that of a long paper, or of a shorter paragraph response to a prompt or quiz question. In turn, developing this ability for self-assessment will help them to achieve academic excellence not only in my English class, but in almost all of their other academic endeavors as well.
Question 3: Briefly describe a time when you achieved a goal in the face of challenges or while balancing multiple responsibilities. What steps did you take to ensure you would meet your goal, and how will that experience contribute to your ability to be successful with your students?
At the end of the summer of 2009, I was faced with the challenge of finding employment for the winter and spring of 2010. In addition to finding employment, I also needed to organize a move from Texas to Indiana, and make arrangements for my children’s schooling, day care and health care. Moreover, due to my wife’s new work hours, general household maintenance—for example, cooking, cleaning, getting kids ready in the morning and putting them to bed at night—fell to me as well!
I did things I’d never done before. I made to-do lists. I set down deadlines for myself on calendars in a disciplined, conscientious way. I organized paperwork using folders. I hadn’t realized before this to just what extent I’d managed to “float” through life. Indeed, I had always thought of myself as responsible and punctual. But that self-conception was being tested.
The good news is, it worked. I developed the right habits for myself. And because I was able to organize my work effectively, my job search went well. This semester I am teaching four University level courses, and successfully freelancing as a grant proposal writer. The academic job market is extremely difficult right now. But through organization and discipline I was able to overcome that difficulty.
Of course anyone should have these kinds of organizational skills, and I’m not telling you something particularly great about myself when I reveal that it is only recently that I actively tested my abilities in this area. But what is good about this is that, perhaps, if I’d applied to be a Teaching Fellow last year, before my organizational skills underwent this overhaul, I might have collapsed under the weight of multiple responsibilities that come with undergoing a program that includes both the teaching of multiple classes and earning teaching certification through various classes and workshops at the same time. But now, having gone through my Autumn of Heavy Responsibility and come out not just surviving but doing very well, I know I am ready for such a deadline-heavy and work-intensive environment. I will be able to stick to my curricula, and this in turn will contribute directly to my success with students. For a teacher who fails to provide an organized learning environment for his students has practically failed at education already.
