So, after months of preparation, an online application, and a telephone interview, Teach For America invited me to one final interview to see if I’m up to snuff for their teaching program. It was about 4-5 straight hours of presentations, group projects, and interestingly enough, a mock lesson that each one of us was supposed to conduct. There were ten other seniors in the room with me, besides the two young TFA instructors who were reviewing and taking notes on us, and I was amazed at how well we all did.

I spent a lot of time (4-5 hours) last night rehersing and practicing for my lesson plan. I highly doubt that real teachers do it this way, but for a faux-teacher like myself, I found that writing down a script, and then reading it over and over again helped my memory retention for my chosen five-minute lesson plan, the “American System of Checks and Balances.” You might find this kind of silly, but before I went to bed last night I recorded myself reading my prepared lesson at a rate and pitch that I thought would be relaxing and measured, giving myself exactly 4 minutes, plus 1 minute to complete the quiz/worksheet that I had prepared for the 10 other students in my “classroom.”

Here’s a copy of the practice speech that I fell asleep listening to on repeat. Keep in mind that I was orienting the language to be suitable for 7th graders, and I had to try to get as much in within 5 minutes as possible. In the shower this morning, I read the lesson several times to the wall as the hot water hit me. I was so relaxed, so ready to go, so pumped at the thought of giving my presentation, that I found myself half-wishing I could give my lesson from the comfort of the shower. However, figuring that they probably wouldn’t rate that as “Business-Formal Attire” I suspected it wouldn’t go over too well, and I reluctantly exited, with plenty of time before the day’s 9:00AM scheduled start.

For comparative purposes, I had my recorder in suit breast pocket while I did my speech. You can obviously tell that being in front of people (especially being judged in front of people) makes my speech patterns a little flustered and nervous, something I’ve been working on correcting for a long time. I’ve gotten a lot better though; when I would do presentations in 4-H as a kid, sometimes stuttering would get the better of me, which rarely happens these days. Unfortunately, I didn’t budget my time as closely as I hoped, and I missed out on talking about “Judicial Independence” which I thought was particularly interesting in the years since the Bush v. Gore case. Didn’t get to show everyone my nifty worksheet that I designed either; ah well.

Following all of our lessons (which were great; it was like being in middle school all over again with all the simple handouts everyone got from everyone else) we had our face-to-face interview. My interviewer, Jessie, was very nice and really did a good job of encouraging me to just speak my mind on her questions, which ranged from my reactions to hypothetical school policies, previous experience in leadership roles within the Campus Antiwar Network and within the Division of Information Technology, and my goals as a teacher for TFA. She also reassured me that a lot of people go over their time a little bit (there were two others in my group besides me that did) - the main thing is just hearing how we comport ourselves in a public speaking situation.

In a few weeks, I should find out whether or not I passed and am an “official” TFA corps member! Listening to that audio transcription of myself, I wince a little bit, but I suppose everyone winces when they hear themselves give a speech that didn’t go anything but perfectly. All in all, it was a good day - I look forward to hearing TFA’s results!

UPDATE 4/22/08: Well, apparently TFA and I are not compatible, according to lovecalculator.com and this rejection email they sent me. Sad, but I’m not upset with them; I know that they have an acceptance rate of 17% or something and they have to choose on talented candidates all the time. Besides, this will give me more time to hopefully focus on being the best possible candidate for Habitat For Humanity. I hope other people have better luck than I - and don’t forget to practice!