Most common 1st interview question- A brief self-introduction

I feel this question is the hardest one out there. You never truly know what they are looking for. It's hard to know how far to delve into the past, and how detailed do you get? I tried to keep my focused on how art did (or didn't) fit into my life and my career path to getting to the point of where I am now.

I was born and raised in Iowa, and have spent most of my adult life living in Iowa as well. From a young age I was always told how good I was at drawing, but wasn’t encouraged enough to think seriously about what that could me for me in the future. I spent most of my high school days in the art room after realizing from my wonderful art teachers how great it truly is to be creative. I went to a community college and got an Interior Design degree then moved to the Chicago suburbs to pursue the industry. I quickly realized that I made the right choice to be in a creative field, but interior design just wasn’t quite the right fit. I moved back to Iowa with hopes to go back to school to become an art teacher. I began working at Tanager Place School, and realized how much I love to work with children. It was then that I finally figured out that being an art teacher was definitely the right career for me. I began back to school at the community college level once again and quickly transferred to The University of Iowa. It was the perfect fit for me; a creative team of teachers along with a structured program. I continued to work at Tanager Place while going to school because it always brought me happiness to be around kids.

What is your “teaching objective”- How did you come up with it?

When thinking about my teaching objectives, I looked back to my rough draft of my teaching philosophy. The ideas were there, I just needed to refine and define them more clearly. I looked to the book, "Getting Hired", and used some of the objectives in there as a sort of cheat or a way to kick off my list. Here goes:

Objective & Skills: Art Education K-12

· Development of student creativity through multiple types of medium and techniques
· Promote advocacy of the arts through student, community and family involvement
· Advance student knowledge of histories, cultures and personal artistry
· Individualized art: Studio centered class times to freely explore and create

It's hard to know what to put in and what to leave out, because there are so many ideas that you want to get to let people know. I feel that these 4 ideas express what I want to accomplish in my classroom without getting too involved or being too vague.

So far I’ve _, but I would still like to _.

As I've been reflecting back on my last eight weeks at the elementary school, I feel there is so much I learned and accomplished, but I also feel that there is so much I still have to learn.

I've been working professionally with kids for almost 4 years now, and I feel that I have a pretty good handle on behavior management and knowing how to maintain a good rapport with kids without being their friend. I still felt that working in the elementary school, but I felt a little out of my element at the same time. I wasn't always sure of the policies and procedures with certain things, so I sometimes turned the other way when little things were brought to me by students. Just the other day, a girl came up to me at recess and told me her friend brought out a radio, and a bunch of other girls were following her around and listening to it. She told me because she didn't want her friend to get in trouble with a teacher or an adult. I not only thought this was funny, because I was supposed to be just as capable of getting someone in "trouble" as any other adult on campus, but because I wasn't going to get her in trouble because I didn't know what the right disciplinary action was.

I feel confident with the teaching part of being a teacher, but my goal going into the high school is to get to know how to deal with discipline problems and figure out a way to help students mediate between one another when having a argument or not getting along.

There are things that college courses cannot teach you, and I feel this is one of them. I'm going to persoanlly sure that I am holding myself accountable with this so that I won't be tiptoeing around when I am the adult who has to do something.

Saying goodbye to your first placement

As my first placement comes to an end, I am beginning to realize how much I'm going to miss my students and the environment of the school. I anticipated that I would find students that I would connect with and attach to, but I never thought I would find myself wishing I could come back and see them again after my student teaching is done. Today one of my students asked me when she would see me again after I left, an thought it was totally unnecessary for me to go to the high school. This really made me want to stay!

There is no doubt that I learned a lot about how to teach, but I also learned a lot about the community of the school. My school has been going through a lot of changes, and it's interesting to see how the staff are handling everything. It's easy to see there are politics everywhere!

My cooperating teacher talks to me a lot about the students and their families to get a deeper insight on their lives and where their art expressions come from. Before I began student teaching, I thought about the lessons I would learn and the classroom management strategies that I could pick up, but I never really considered all these other little things that are vital to a classroom teacher.

I've realized that there are ups and downs to being a teacher--the enjoyment students get from what they are doing, to the "boredom" students feel when a lesson isn't up to their standards. I know it goes with the territory, but there is still a part of me that wishes I could make every student happy.