I have some bad news. My fellow Cohort 18 Fellow, Double Hooks, whose blog I read as often as it’s updated, Fellow of the 15 interviews, no longer has any interviews – casualties of Week One of the New Teacher Hiring Freeze. Please say a prayer and light 17 candles for me, him and the anonymous commenter who’s in the same boat.

I quote

“All of the interviews I had set up have now been canceled with no alternative dates established…Prior to the decision by my buddy Joel, I interviewed at 4 of the most difficult schools in New York. 2 schools offered a position on the spot. All offers were rescinded after the announcement by the chancellor.”

While I disagree with my fellow Fellow’s opinion of the teachers in the ATR, because I can’t possibly know if they are “good” or “piss poor” [for that matter, who can know such a thing for certain? Isn't a lot of it subjective (I don't trust standardized tests more than their average scores), depending on the observer's philosophy, the most recent methods coming out of Teachers College and their own preferred teaching style? I digress.] I am feeling some of the same feelings he’s feeling!

I actually felt like I got something out of the classroom observations, even though they clearly were not at high-need schools. It’s instructive to see spellbinding teaching, challenging curricula and positive classroom cultures, even if the students are predisposed to behaving well and doing work.

I can’t say the same thing about the “debrief” sessions afterwards – I’m tired of hearing the same things I’ve read more than twice already in two separate “webinars.” NYCTF can be awfully impersonal and inflexible. My debrief leader kept saying “I can’t get into all the wonderful stuff I want to tell you about” over and over and over until I finally was like, “Look, I’ll shut the door. Let’s talk about this for real.” Impersonal. Inflexible. I guess that’s the DOE.

BUT – Double Hooks is right on the money with this one: Having us new Fellows spend a day in an underperforming school would have been a great seive for those of us who aren’t really up to the task of working in a very high-need school. I can’t say I know what it’s really like (I haven’t seen a school fight where cops were called, yet) but I feel like I know what it’s sort of like (a 7-year-old kid in my mom’s class, who “can’t count” brought marijuana to school, was shown to the Principal’s office, and protested by saying, “What? It’s less than an eighth of an ounce!”) And I feel like I really, really want to work with that child!

Anyways, this post was just supposed to be an update on the job outlook for Cohort 18. I hope we all can get through this, get teaching positions and enjoy a crazyhecticmadjoyful ‘09-’10 school year. Hope is all I have right now, but that’s better’n nothin’.