The Interview

      The In Person Interview (IPI) went well today.  I arrived at the venue a half hour early and one of the Teach Away reps collected my documents.  I spent lots of time picking the perfect report folder with an outline of the world map and they didn't even keep it so don't worry about the small stuff.  All of my paperwork had been started but I was still lacking a few things (passport, FBI check, and the final authentication of my documents).  Adrianna was not worried about this and told me to send it in as soon as it arrived.
     I wore a long black skirt with a colorful blouse and black flats.  There were women in suits and pants.  The men I saw all work suits.  I believe if you look polished you will be fine in whatever attire you choose.  After about a 20 minute wait I was greeted by a gentleman with a heavy australian accent.  At least I thought it was australian.
    He introduced himself and another gentleman who was an American.  They began by asking me to describe the classroom in which I teach now and what it would look like if they were two flies on the wall.  I describing my unique classroom setting which is a challenge lab with groups working on different subjects and or projects throughout the day and they were both active listeners. They then asked if I taught a lesson and how that would look.  I discussed using mini-lessons with hands on learning and then having the students engage in a similar activity as I observed and worked with small groups as needed.  They set the stage that I was a grade 4 teacher in the UAE next year and what would I do the first day.  I described an All About Me theme so that I would be able to assess the students levels of English as we learned about each other.  I described writing a class book, Who Am I?   Where a photo of the child is placed on the top of the page and hidden with a flap.  Students write sentences to describe themselves and then the class reads the book while guessing who is being described on each page.  The interviewer then said the principal comes to tell me I must teach The Desert as the first unit instead and what would I do?  I spoke to the fact that I would do what my boss said but maybe integrate my ideas in like All About Me in the Desert unit.The next question was how would I react if my supervisor asked me to raise my grades by 20 points before the next class do so that my grades reflected the level of grades that my Arabic partner had given.  The answer needed to be that you would do that.  The trust and relationship between educational leadership is much more important than grades.  I assured him this would work for me because grades are more of a motivator for parents than it is for students.  I assured them that the motivators I used in class were praise, recognition, and a well thought out lesson with interesting activities.  The interviewers then began to share information about teaching in UAE.  They described the dress code, how the cycles of education were separated.  I did notice on my paperwork that it had me listed as cycle 1 which is grades 1-5.  The told me about the 3 areas and asked if I would be able to drive.  They said that the ADEC would place me where I was needed.  One of the interviewers even described that should I do well and have a successful year that promotion to an educational advisor might be a possibility.  I'm not sure whether this was directed at me specifically or just general information but I had not read that this was discussed with any others who are sharing experiences on Facebook.  They asked if I had any questions and I asked about scheduling around call to prayer and also about the e learning initiative that I had read about on the internet.  I tried to ask questions that showed interest in culture and education rather than when I would find out about their decisions.  They then told me they would be heading back to Abu Dhabi soon and would be making decisions about candidates.  We were told we would hear something in the next week or two.  All in all I think it was a successful interview and I am excited about the outcome.