Since my first term in Fall 2010, Peter, my main supervisor for CalState Teach has been encouraging me to talk to a principal. Essentially, he's been encouraging me to ask a principal what it would take me to get hired. I don't really procrastinate, but that was one of the things which I have been procrastinating on until last week.
I asked the principal at Chabot Elementary, "What qualities do you look for in a teacher that you will hire?" I cannot tell you what he said verbatim since I didn't record the conversation, but I can give you a gist of what he said. He said that he looks for a teacher with "with-it-ness." By the examples that he gave me, when he says "with-it-ness," he means that he prefers a teacher that has his or her class on lockdown as far as behavior management goes and is fast and efficient with respect to instruction.
As far as behavior management goes, he expressed that a teacher has a system in place to get students to behave how the teacher desires that they behave. An example he gave, which one of my former mentors did was to give table points. I'll give you an even more specific example. Let's say that the class is supposed to be silent reading for 30 minutes. Those tables which are silent reading when they are supposed to will receive table points. Once all six tables of four gets 100 points, they would get a pizza party after a few months. Silent reading is one opportunity to receive table points, but there are others as well.
I recall that with respect to instruction, he expressed that more time than is necessary to give students recognition is not done. Also, when students answer, some of them ramble. So, being able to conclude that quickly so that they don't cause the class to drag behind the scheduled lesson is something he expressed with respect to being fast and efficient in implementing instruction.
That's what I can remember. Hopefully, some of that was of use to someone.
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