Finding a teaching job can be hard, but here is some advice to make it easier.  Even though I’ve never been a teacher,  I’ve worked with many and I have huge respect for them. Truly, teachers are the most underpaid and underappreciated professionals in the United States. But that’s not really the subject of this blog, so before I digress . . . 

Before and after I was Executive Director of the Pee Dee Education Foundation, I was involved in the human resource functions at my workplace, so I gained a good deal of experience in reviewing résumés  and identifying the right candidates for a particular  job. My last job with a mid-sized consulting firm that specializes in grants development, management, administration, and evaluation put me in a role to help grantees staff new positions funded with grant funds. The one thing that I saw over and over again in reviewing résumés from potential candidates was that most teachers didn’t do a very good job of marketing themselves. Their résumés were vastly different from the résumés of other professionals. Teachers are waaaaaaay too humble!A good résumé is all about the person applying for the job, so when you modest teachers get ready put your accomplishments on paper, it’s time to toot your own horn—and toot it loudly. If you don’t do it at any other time in your life, brag a little! Drafting a good résumé requires that you sell yourself to a potential employer.From my experience in reviewing résumés, I can tell you that depending on how many people are applying for a given position, the person reading your résumé is only scanning each one. And in today’s economy, you can be assured that almost every available job opening has at least a hundred or more candidates. So your résumé has to stand out from the rest! Here are a few tips for preparing your résumé in hopes of landing a teaching position:

Appearance Is Important – Without question, the appearance of your résumé says a lot about you and your work habits. For example, when I see a disorganized, poorly formatted résumé, my sense of the candidate is that he/she is poorly organized as an employee. If you aren’t going to put your best foot forward in the first step of the application process, my expectations of what you will do on the job are very low. You don’t need a graphic designer to help you lay out an appealing résumé, but if you aren’t proficient with the great templates provided in most word processing programs, you need to find someone who is. Bullet points, font choices, and other formatting are all important. 

Experience Counts – There are plenty of folks right out of college who are hoping to land a teaching position, so they won’t have any teaching experience to put on a résumé. In the case of an aspiring teacher, it’s very important to outline your work or volunteer experience with children and teens and make it relevant to the job you’re after. For example, if you want to teach middle school, talk about the summer you volunteered as a camp counselor for pre-teens and what you did there. 

Go For Quality vs. Quantity – The amount of experience you’ve had won’t mean much if you don’t tell the employer what you accomplished in your previous jobs versus what you did as a part of your job description. The fact that you taught kindergarten for 12 years doesn’t mean anything to me as a school administrator.  What I want to know is what you accomplished as a teacher. What things made you stand out from other teachers? Did you implement a special program for children who required special intervention strategies? Did you teach in a school system where many of the children came from homes where one or both parents were undereducated and unable to help their children with literacy skills? If so, did you do something unique to help those parents understand how to incorporate literacy into a child’s everyday life? Those kinds of achievements and strategies tell a school administrator that you are the candidate that won’t settle for status quo. Your résumé should literally SHOUT that you are an outstanding teacher and that you are ready to help the students under your tutelage learn to their fullest potential.

Talk About Technology – A strong teacher today must be able to integrate technology into their classroom curriculum effectively. Kids know more about technology than most of us do. And children—especially those without a lot of resources in the home—are eager to learn using technology. Outline the software applications you know as well as the various gadgets and computerized things you know how to use. If you’re particularly good with technology, make a brief mention about how you’ve used technology in the classroom. 

Brag a Little – If you’re a new teacher, talk about honors or recognition you received in college or graduate school. If you’ve been teaching a while, mention any accolades you’ve received as a teacher. A résumé is not the place to practice humility. The bottom line is this: an effective teacher résumé should outline your ability to motivate and encourage students to learn—to think on a higher plain. Your résumé should show that you’re not simply going through the motions by showing up every day, being on time, and staffing a classroom. A warm body can do that. Exemplary teachers leave students with memories of enhanced knowledge, improved self esteem, and better social interaction between students and their peers and students and teachers. But the most important thing that makes you, as teachers, stand out as the consummate professionals you are is the sense of achievement you leave behind in a student. As you put your education, experience, and accomplishments on paper, think about the lasting impression you’ve made on a student. You can still be humble, but I can assure you, bragging rights are justifed!


This post is part of the Teaching Jobs Portal: "How to land a Teacher Job". What was your journey like to become a teacher? If you’d like to share your experience with other aspiring teachers please see this postfor more information

 
 
 Let's face it, our children have grown up in a technological era and anything with a joy stick, track wheel, or LED screen grabs their attention much more quickly than a text book.

I recently learned about a device called a Kindle from a teacher friend who is hoping to buy the devices for primary school children to entice them to be more engaged in learning. And I must say, as an avid reader, my curiosity is piqued!

If you read a lot, books are heavy and take up a lot of space, unless you go to the public library and check them out. Not many people do that these days. They either wait for the paper back or swap titles with their other reading friends. But a Kindle--now that's another story. You can store lots and lots of books on this small device. In fact, Amazon.com has hundreds of titles that you can buy to load on this great little gadget. And textbook vendors are getting in to the game, too.

Read more about the Kindle at  Amazon.com 
or enter to win one for yourself by clicking on this link Kindle Give-Away at Noobie.
 
 
Some of our group members know me personally. But many of you don’t know anything at all about me, so you may wonder why I chose to start a group in support of education—especially when I’ve never taught or worked in a school. So let me start from the beginning, and I think my passion for education will become clearer as I update my blog posts with information about me.  

Early Education

I am a product of the South Carolina public schools and graduated from Latta High School in 1974. Segregation ended at the end of my eighth grade year, and the elementary school I attended in Floyd Dale (a feeder school to LHS) was closed. My seventh grade class boasted an enrollment of six (yes, that's 6) students!

The school employed only four teachers for seven grades, one of whom served as principal. So how do four teachers provide instruction to seven grades? I call it the "Little House on the Prairie" model.

The first grade teacher had the luxury of teaching only first graders, but one teacher worked with second and third grades, and the principal taught sixth and seventh grades.

School days at Floyd Dale were wonderful! Class sizes were extremely small, and having two grades to a classroom gave students a huge leg up. In fact, many LHS valedictorians came from Floyd Dale.

The advantages of dual grade actually made great, practical sense when you get right down to it . . . a second grader had the advantage of an early introduction into third grade work. Conversely, a third grader who was having some scholastic difficulties had the luxury of a review of prior grade subjects. The dual grade model of instruction was a win-win for everybody.

A highlight of my years at Floyd Dale Elementary was when I won the Dillon County Spelling Bee as a sixth grader. And you'll never believe who lost to me . . . Ben Bernanke, now Chairman of the Federal Reserve! Of course, it was nothing short of a fluke. He won the next year (I intentionally lost early in the bee so I wouldn't have to go to state), and he went on to win the S.C. Spelling Bee that year.

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When this group was started in August, 2009, I set a goal of 1,000 members. It only took a week or so to recruit 30 members, but things sort of stalled after that. So earlier this week, I challenged members to enlist some new recruits in an effort to grow our ranks to 1,000 members by November 1st.

Using the facebook page as a way of managing the competition doesn't seem to be working so well, so I am going to try using this blog (via my website) to make the competition a little more accessible. In addition, the use of this blog will enable users to see a more logical flow of information and to post comments more easily. There will be times when activities--such as discussion boards--will take place on the facebook group page. In addition, the meatier topics, such as sources of funding and give-aways for educators, will be posted to the group page.

While the competition has already garnered 15 new members in two days, I don't know who is responsible for helping to grow the membership. So, let's try this again . . .

CONTEST RULES
1) Those individuals who were members on October 20, 2009, should post a comment below indicating the members they recruited. I trust each of you so through Monday, October 26, 2009, we will be on an honor system.
2) Each member may recruit as many members as possible. In fact, that's the goal of the contest. I will count new recruits through December 1, 2009 since November is right around the corner.
3) After Monday, October 26, when a new member joins, they must post a comment for this blog indicating who recruited them and why they are interested in the group. 
The winner must live in or work in a school system in the Pee Dee or Coastal Regions of South Carolina.

The member who enlists the largest number of recruits wins a $50 gift certificate to Outback. I will award the prize the second week in December.

I am looking for sponsors to help with other give-aways and prizes so keep checking the site. Happyrecruiting!
 

    TEACH: Teachers & Educators: Admired, Cherished, Honored

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    Teachers, educators and their supporters from the Pee Dee and Coastal Regions of South Carolina are invited to participate in TEACH: Teachers & Educators: Admired, Cherished, Honored. We encourage educators to share their experiences and best practices and solicit comments from the greater community of education supporters in praise of education professionals.

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