April Fools??

Oh, wait. It's still January.

Last fall I had a painful experience with a student teacher. After that, we developed a policy that we would interview all candidates before allowing them to be placed at our site. I was contacted last week about another potential candidate, and the university supervisor was very cooperative in arranging a meeting for today. She asked for detailed directions to the school for the candidate (let's call him D) and relayed them to him.

The meeting was scheduled for 2:15. At 2:30, there was still no D, nor any contact. I realized that I had failed to give him my cell phone number, so I called the supervisor. She quickly contacted him and confirmed that he was lost (in spite of the detailed directions) and had me call him to assist him. When I got ahold of him, he was somewhere around 33rd St. The directions DID indicate that we were located on 58th St. I dismissed this lapse in judgment, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

At 2:45 a balding, bespectacled white man with shabby clothes and bad teeth pulled into the parking lot. Once again, giving him the benefit of the doubt, we told him all about our school and that we had had student teachers who were "bad fits" before, which was the reason for the interview. We asked to see his resume-which we had asked him to bring. He didn't have one. We asked to see his lesson plan he had brought. After telling us that he had failed his teacher ed. course the first time, he presented us with an OH SO INSIGHTFUL lesson asking students to translate a scene from Romeo & Juliet into modern English-there's something we'd never seen before! We learned that he graduated from high school in 1993 but had no work experience aside from subbing. When we asked why he wanted to become a teacher, he informed us that he was really interested in visual arts, but he figured he could teach and then get a month off every year. That, and when he was a TA at his junior college, many of the students preferred to ask him for help instead of the professor.

WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Why did I waste an hour of my time today when this man clearly has NO passion (not to mention qualifications) for working with young people?? What on EARTH would make anyone think that he had any possibility of surviving even ONE DAY in our school?? And WHO would subject ANY students to such an individual, much less the neediest students??

After he left, my colleague and I were still too incredulous to find TOO much humor in the situation. We were more relieved that we had dodged that bullet!!

The state of education is a sad, sad thing.