My elder son is a musician, recently moved to New York City after completing his education at Musician Institute in Hollywood (that culminated in his debut CD, hearable here). He went job hunting while band-forming gets underway and got an interview as a sushi cook for a midtown restaurant (based on his having been a sushi chef for a year in Ithaca). After a successful interview, they told him to return the next day for a performance-based assessment of his skills.
The next day Justin returned in cooking gear with his sushi knife expecting to show his skills to the interviewer. Nope: baptism of fire: 2 hours of work during the lunch hour for real customers, under the direction of the head chef. Justin was taught 3 recipes and presentations, shown them modeled, and expected to deliver them in real time. He acknowledged that he barely passed the test – the NYC midtown expectations for precision, consistency, and aesthetics were higher than at his upstate restaurant. His worked was constructively but bluntly criticized all two hours.
At the end of 2 hours, his work was discussed by the cook and the interviewer. They gave him the job – hooray! – even though they reiterated that his work was not yet up to standard. However, since they found him so pleasant and amenable to feedback and learning, they said “we think you can come up to our standards soon if you work hard and continue learning.”
Is there any greater embarrassment in education – that we hire teachers without seeing them work for a few hours and without making clear that we have standards for performance that must be met to get hired and keep a job? (I wrote a chapter on this issue in a book on Excellence in Teaching for Solution Tree.) The older I get the more I am utterly convinced that better hiring is key to organizational excellence. It’s also the KEY point of leverage we have with schools of education.
Please post any interesting performance-based approaches to hiring in your school/district/college and/or horror stories about idiotic hiring policies.
UPDATE: Justin, on the job!
POSTSCRIPT: I received an email from a friend of mine who works in the healthcare field. I thought readers would be interested in her response:
Though I am out of your industry – my industry (healthcare) is certainly a consumer of the education system. Hiring right is about the most important thing we can do. Stakes are so high in healthcare. When we make mistakes- we can harm or kill people. The right people with the right training supported by our very best technology and work flow processes are our best defense.
Long ago, we recognized that our new graduate hires (specifically – nursing) had the expected technical skills but were really lacking in the critical thinking skills required to manage in this high risk environment. We need healthcare workers that exhibit the perfect balance of independent critical thinking and the ever important ability to work effectively as part of a team. There’s no path to success for any healthcare worker if you can’t think, extrapolate your learning to other similar situations, and have skill at asking the right questions so the best answers have a chance to show up.
Your model has direct application here.
Several years ago, we closed a hospital and converted it into the country’s most comprehensive simulation hospital. It is equipped with expensive high fidelity mannequins that do everything from vomit, void, have heart attacks, express emotions, deliver babies, etc. EVERY one of newly hired nurses spends the first weeks of their employ working their full shift in the sim hospital. Here, they learn our clinical protocols, our equipment (and by the way, the sim ctr is equipped with the EXACT equip they’ll find when they arrive at the hospital to work on live patients). We have some of our very best clinicians in a control room concurrently feeding a scenario into the “patient” room. The students are videotaped. The instructor can continue to challenge the student (through the scenario) to strengthen their specific learning needs at the time. In this environment, our employees can fail faster knowing that their “errors” won’t harm a patient. Because we can simulate situations over and over, new hires can become proficient in a way that is not possible if you do something once a week on the job. It’s a work in progress, but we have cut weeks off of our orientation time of old where new hires would be assigned a preceptor on the nursing unit. In addition to this efficiency, we can provide our patients a safer and more competent workforce.
We do the same thing with our medical students and residents.
Technical skills can be taught. The all important emotional intelligence skills are needed. today and will be that much more needed in our healthcare of the future.
30 Responses
Hmmm…. I’m wondering why you do not think the 6 month student teaching is not “seeing them work”? Most, if not all colleges of education require student teaching of 6 months to a full year before graduation. The supervising teacher is supposed to be doing just what you describe your son experienced as a sushi chef- “cooking” for real students, in real time with constant feedback, suggestions and reviews.
After the first time teacher is hired, there is a “probation” period where the teacher can be fired for not having the right shirt color on. Often that is the first 2 years. Again, this is the time for support and learning for the teacher. The problem, though, is that we often do not provide adequate support and learning opportunities because all the oterh employees are so busy with their own work. This is one area in which we need to make dramatic improvements.
You miss the point: the issue is the hiring process by the school, not the training and assessing process by the University. Schools take the word of professors and transcripts without often seeing for themselves what the teacher can or cannot do. Its basic due diligence by schools that is the issue.
Schools can be as diligent as they want, but it’s not like most public schools are turning down any great candidates (because there are so few).
Not true in large county districts and growing suburban districts. And even if only the few hires made are improved, over a 5-year period the impact could be considerable.
I know a big issue is certification relating to pre-reqs. I ended up teaching in Louisville (still here) through a teacher recruitment program called Teach Kentucky, and our program director/founder has to turn down some very intelligent people (who knows if they would become effective teachers) because they had various liberal arts majors at prestigious colleges and universities.
I would also add that, just as the restaurant in Ithaca had lower standards than the midtown restaurant, schools cannot trust in university assessment alone. This is particularly true when one considers the abnormal amount of “A” grades given to student teachers.
Also, as someone who had a horrible student teaching experience with a “cooperating teacher” who was anything BUT, I would have much preferred to demonstrate skills than go off her reference alone. I managed to persevere. 🙂
Ok- I get your point. Here’s the thing though… the current system does give a way for the teacher to get practice and training. Right now, as you correctly put, the University is in charge of that. However, the school system and school sees the person’s transcript and resume. I did student teaching (not classroom teaching though). When I applied for a job, the boss looked at my transcript and my resume and could see what credentials I possessed. They could see where I student taught. They could see who the contact person was for my student teaching and could give them a call. They could ask me at my interview about my student teaching experiences. This is the way you hire in education. If the districts or schools are not doing this- than we do have a problem with the system. However, this is already in place.
Having said that though, we do need more in the way of supports for new teachers. It is clear with the number who leave the profession by 5 years (half!) that improvements need to be made to support the teacher and to provide opportunities for continued learning. Here is an article giving some of the reasons teachers leave: http://www.nea.org/home/12630.htm . We have a retention crisis according to this article. If we can give the teachers a year of being directly mentored by a lead teacher in a shared classroom opportunity- that would be fantastic.
I do not think though that you can sample a teacher’s skills like you mention that the sushi chef skills could be sampled over a day. Education does not really lend itself to “sampling” in that way. A longer period of time is needed. And principals can do this. The job isn’t permanent until a certain period of time (90 days mostly). This is enough to see how they can teach. Trouble is though- principals do not have any time to do this. We have stretched our schools so thin that we have no capacity for support nor proper review of teaching skills. All of this takes time and money- both of which are in short supply in education today.
I earned a teaching credential along with my master’s degree from Teachers College back in 2000. One of the recommendations they gave us was to have a sample lesson prepared (and to be ready to teach it) as we applied at schools in NY. I’m from California and chose to return here after graduation. When I had my first school interview, I was surprised that they were not interested in seeing me teach, or even in seeing the lesson. I got the job without the lesson, which was gratifying at the time. Now, if I were hiring at a school site, I’d certainly want to see applicants’ lessons and some form of demonstration of competence (be it teaching, assessing work, or otherwise)!
As a ELA dept. head of a large high school, I was the person who interviewed and actually hired new teachers for any vacancies in our department. I gave each applicant a set of 6 student essays and a rubric our district used to rate them. I asked the prospective teachers to 1) give each a score 2) explain why that score fit both the rubric and the piece of writing 3) suggest an area in need in revision.After they did this–sweating bullets the entire time, I might add–we had a face to face interview. I got a really good picture from that exercise of the teacher’s ability to spot good writing or not, deal with surface errors and miss the deeper issues or not, and an idea of how they could help direct students’ in bettering their work. I also had proof and evidence to back up my choices when the district tried to force me to hire a good coach but a poor teacher!
When I was applying for a teaching job, I was asked to prepare a 20 minute lesson and then presented it to a sample group of students while the interviewers observed (most of the students seemed to be higher achievers). It certainly wasn’t a trial by fire, but it was more performance-based than any other interview I had done at other schools.
Great topic.
This called back to mind Chapter 3 of Jim Collins’ book Good to Great where he discusses the principle of “First Who, Then What”.
Among the many thing he said on this topic this stuck with me:
“If you have the right people ‘on the bus’ the problem of motivating and managing people largely goes away. The right people simply just don’t need to be managed or fired up. They will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce great results and to be part of creating something exceptional . . . If you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction, you still won’t have a great company. Great vision, without great people, is irrelevant.”
Collins summarizes “First Who, Then What” in this short video:
http://www.jimcollins.com/media_topics/first-who.html#audio=95
Dead on. The older I get, the more I think Collins is right. (The same lesson is stated in First, Break All the Rules). We waste inordinate amount of time trying to recover from lame hires. I see it in my own little company: our last two hires have been so great that we have few worries and more fun trusting these people to do good stuff.
But when you have a job that is not well supported, has an overwhelming amount of daily work, has lots of challenges out of their control and does not pay well with a low ceiling over the life of the job, you are not going to get a huge pool of great hires.
The real issue, to me, is the lack of prestige in the profession. Almost anybody who truly wants to become a public teacher can do so. Schools are riddled with mediocrity when the job is one of the toughest on the planet to do well.
That’s why I think it is in our interest to increase the demands in hiring. It might cause a different crop of people to apply. This is certainly the premise behind TFA and prep school hiring – they arguably attract a higher calibre of applicant by not demanding typical certification papers. On the other hand, think how powerful it would be if an entire county of school districts agreed collectively on a new hiring policy that demanded demonstrated ability to teach kids, handle teaching problems, grade papers, and de-bug a lesson design.
Grant,
I’m in complete agreement with you. However, funding would have to change, as there’s no way you’ll attract a huge pool of high-calibre applicants without a substantial pay increase or pay scale that reflects job performance.
http://mindfulstew.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/why-100000-teacher-salaries-make-sense/
Can you imagine a consensus on how to evaluate teacher pay based on performance? I have a hard time doing so, and am completely against any pay tied to current testing models.
I will add that many independent schools now include a demo class as part of the interview process for finalists. When I interviewed for a 5-12 position as teacher and department chair, I had to teach both a 7th grade class and a 10th grade class. I was observed in both of these classes by several adults. I wonder whether it might work better to have the classes videotaped, rather than to have all those adults in the room, as their presence changed the kids’ behavior. It’s also important to note that I didn’t know the kids, as I would have had they been my regular students; however, the choices I made and how I worked with kids I didn’t know were revealing. I have also heard of schools that ask candidates for video submissions of their teaching. You would think that what gets submitted would be stellar; my impression is that it isn’t.
Yes, and TFA has 80% who leave by 2 years. We must pay more and offer more opportunities for teachers. We must have behavior experts in every school to help with kids who act out in the classroom. We must have a proper number of students in each class. We must have mentors for new teachers. And we must have ample number of school counselors (our ration here is 600 students for each counselor). It teaching becomes a more attractive profession, you’ll get fantastic students lining up around the building to apply. Then schools can pick the best of the bunch. That would be the way to go.
I’m left wondering how much we will truly know about a teacher by observing them teach for a few hours in a class which is not their own. I don’t deny it can give us some information but …
I’ve worked in a private language school in Laos the past 17 years. While I don’t do the hiring (or firing) I have worked with the professional development program and three-month new teacher training program. What I’ve learned is that the excellent teachers are those who are able to reflect on they what/how/why of their work, welcome collaboration and sharing and have the motivation to continue their own learning. Certification, previous experience, and ability to deliver an hour ‘model lesson’ are far more unpredictable. Unfortunately these dispositions can likely only be seen after the hiring process.
Agreed that it might be better to know the kids, but as an observer looking at a potential hire, it would be pretty clear from the post-class de-brief how savvy and kid-focused the prospective teacher was by what they DID see and hear. I have done a lot of quick walk-thrus over the past 20 years and it is remarkably easy to tell, quickly, who is talented and who isn’t. It’s reflected in focus, calibre of accountable talk, quality of activities and coaching, targeted feedback, etc.
I agree, Grant. When I do this, I am not evaluating the candidate the same way I would an employee. I am looking for how clearly they can address an objective, creativity to engage their students, and how they are able to interact with kids and let them know how they will be assessed on their progress during the lesson.
Content in context! Bravo Grant for another timely post.
At the small, New York City publc secondary school I teach in we require candidates to do a full 45 minute demo lesson to a real class at the grade level the new teacher would be teaching. The teacher who’s class is used provides the topic and we give the candidate a few days after the initial interview to prepare.
During the lesson the teachers who’s department the candidate might be joining cover each other’s classes for at least 15-20 minutes so we can all observe in addition to the principal, APs, counselors, random teachers on preps, etc (there are sometimes as many adults as kids in the room).
After the lesson the department teachers, administration and a few students from the class will sit down and talk about the lesson and the vibe they got from the teacher. We take the student’s feedback very seriously (there have been times when the kids swung us from yes to no, or from on the fence to yes).
I think this practice is one huge reason we have such a great staff and (despite hiring a lot of young teachers) have not had any teacher turnover in 8 years.
My Grandson is getting his masters to become a science teacher. In one course last semester, he had to turn lecture-based science lessons into inquiry-based. For the first assignment, he was given one week to prepare. The subsequent assignments went from there to 5,4,3,2,1 days. His final exam was to take a given lesson, with one hour to prepare, explain his plan in detail.
I would like to see all new teachers be given an objective, have a day to prepare, and then be required to go into a classroom at the prospective school and teach a class with students for the interview committee.
When I first entered the teaching world as part of an enrichment program, about 10 of us were mostly interviewed as a group over the course of three evenings. That process included observing model lessons by members of the interviewing commitee, presenting a couple of min-lessons on assigned topics (with the other applicants serving as students), and participating in discussions and critiques of the mini lessons we observed. It was relatively informal, but very revealing – not something you could BS your way through.
Grant, you’re dead on with this post. Simply, schools are only as good as their teachers. The impact of one teacher–good or bad–are ever-lasting; we owe it to the students to ensure we hire only the best. With this goal in mind, we cannot rely on interviews and letters of recommendation. While interviews might provide a good initial screening, they leave much to be desired. Anyone involved in hiring, can attest to recommendations being about as accurate as a magnetic compass on the moon. Requiring prospective teachers to teach a lesson to a class of students should be a mandatory part of the hiring process. Like your son’s experience at the sushi restaurant, it’s not necessarily about hiring the most talented person or the person with the best lesson. Instead, we must examine what thoughts and ideas went into the lesson? How did the potential teacher interact with students? And perhaps more importantly, how did the interviewee respond to your observations and criticisms? Is he/she wanting and willing to improve?
We owe it to our students to ensure that we hire the best.
I could not agree with this more! As an assistant principal, I piloted a practice-based method last year in one of the departments I supervise- math. My department chair and I chose the top cover letters/resumes (and I can attest there are in fact a lot of quality candidates out there). We then called candidates and told them we would be e-mailing them a set of objectives that they would have to teach and assess. We scheduled with current teachers when the candidate would come in and teach the lesson.
We still asked some interview questions before they went in to teach. I found that some candidates could deliver a canned, “correct” answer, but were not as comfortable communicating with kids as others. Nothing topped choosing teachers this way, as they have not disappointed. One teacher- who is the best first-year teacher I’ve ever seen, told me that she chose my school over another division precisely because she had to actually teach for her interview- it delivered a strong message to her that we are looking for very high-quality teachers.
I plan on doing this in all departments I supervise this hiring season.
Now that last comment is WAY cool – yet not a surprise. Because I think we under-estimate the effect of having a great hiring process on bringing more top-quality people to interview. (A propose the Collins reference above: in his little appendix volume on not-for-profits, he tells a similar story of a dept head in Colorado (if memory serves) who upped the ante in hiring and accountability and, counter-inuitively, attracted greater interest in the long run form prospective teachers.
Do you know the name of the restaurant that your son got the job at? I’m writing an essay on HRM and recruitment and I’d like to you that as an example if thats alright.
Hillstone on 53rd st. It’s one of a small chain (originated in Texas)