Dear Teachers (who are currently looking for a job)

I know it’s hard. I’ve been there. I’ve filled out the online applications, I’ve been to the cow-herding experience called a job fair and I’ve seen the important month of September roll around and been without a teaching job.

Finding a teaching job is not easy. The screening process and online applications make it near-impossible to get a face to face interview. There’s rarely any feedback from these online applications and there is no reliable source available for teaching jobs online so you have to resort to checking individual school websites.

So how do you get through this process, into the front door and in front of kids so you can actually show people that you can teach and get that gig? Now I’ve got no magical answers but I do have some tips that got me my first three jobs in education and have helped me end up in a dream-job.

• Don’t close doors before you get to the interview: If you are certified to teach K-5 apply to EVERY single job opening you find that includes those grades. If you are a music teacher that only specializes in choir, apply to orchestra and band jobs as well. Don’t limit yourself before you get into the door. If you think you are only able to teach specific grade  you may be right, but getting a gig in an area that is not your specific strength can lead to success and also can be a stepping stone to a position you really love. I never thought I would teach elementary school but after not finding any high school position, all I could find was an elementary gig and it ended up opening a whole new world of education that I now love.

• Work In A School: A couple years ago when September came and I didn’t have a teaching job I took a job as an assistant teacher. I was a 1 to 1 aid assisting a student with special needs. Was this a step down for a high school band teacher with a master’s degree. Kind of, but it got me into a fantastic district and gained some valuable experiences and connections helped me get to my current job. Whether it’s being an assistant, substitute, secretary, or lunch room supervisor, get into a school. Being in a school around kids and teachers will continue to strengthen your teaching even if you aren’t actually teaching.  Being part of a school community is an important way to make connections and creates  a foothold to work your way into a more preferred position.

• Use your connection: If you send in a resume to my school and walked in the door and asked to speak with a principal, you probably won’t get past the security desk. If you called me up, chatted on the phone and I felt you were someone who could add something to my school I could walk you right in and introduce you to not only the principal but other teachers and move you passed the initial screening interview. Btw, if you are looking for teaching gig in the Chicagoland area, let me know (tang.kingsley@gmail.com)  I got my first job through one of my professors and if it wasn’t for an amazing reference call from one of my colleagues I wouldn’t have gotten my current job. Talk to people, let people know at every party you go to and every social event you attend that you are looking for a teaching job. Having an in, knowing someone on the inside is critical. Yes, you can get a job without any connections but in my experiences it’s the people who know people who get the good gigs.

• Treat finding a job as a job: If you’re not spending 10 hours a week looking for jobs, filling out applications and calling people, you’re not working hard enough. This isn’t a fill out one job application a week and wait by the phone process. This is a fill our ten applications a week, drive to schools, bang on doors, call up everyone you know on the planet kind of process. No one is going to give you a job, you have to earn it.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for everyone looking for a teaching job? No, just like how everyone who wants to be a rock star can’t be one. But if being a teacher is that important to you, I believe you can make it happen. You may have to move to a smaller town, be underemployed and do work that you never imagined yourself enjoying but it can happen.

One last thing to think about: Why do you want to be a teacher?  Are the tribulations and frustrations of finding a job worth working with often aggravating and exhausting future generations?  If not, that's okay.  there's plenty of other fields that welcome people with educational backgrounds.

If it is, go for it. Don't give up.  Somewhere there's a school that needs you and a classroom of students yearning to be taught by someone just like you.

Week 32: The First Band Concert

“They are late.” This though echoed in my head as I stood on stage waiting for my middle school students to show up for the our first performance as a middle school band. One of the main parts of my job this year was to start a seventh and eighth grade band. We had a demonstration concert in February but this performance on the Spring Choral concert was our first major concert performance.

I decided to combine the two bands into one to allow for a stronger overall performance but because of circumstances the only time the seventh and eighth grade bands had to work as a group was from 6:30-7:15 before the concert which was set to start at 7:30. So when I checked my watch and saw that is was 6:50 and I didn’t have the majority of my students on stage ready to rehearse I started to feel a sense of panic.

Around 6:55 it seemed that I was able to began. We warmed up with both grades together and performed our piece. It went reasonably well but there was a couple things I wanted to fix. I wanted the beginning to be more solid and for the band to play the ending perfectly together.

Every time I started my students there was at least one student who was not paying attention who missed an entrance or didn’t quite play with the whole ensemble. I doggedly rehearsed my group, calling students out for not paying as close attention as I felt like they should. After four or five unsuccessful tries to get my students to play in unison as I thought they could I looked at my watch as noticed it was 7:10.

And then I gave up.

As a band director I've been taught to be uncompromising, to pursue a level of performance until it was right, but somehow at that moment it felt silly. What did my students really need from my at that moment to feel successful that evening? To play a couple notes perfectly or something more. So I put down my baton and talked to my students.

We’re done playing. We’ll be fine.  You sound great, and you know your music.

I just want us to think about a couple things. What I’m about to say, I’m saying not to make your nervous but to help you understand the importance of what we do tonight.

We have a lot of traditions at this school but rarely do students get to start traditions in our school.  Tonight you are starting a tradition as performing as the first concert band in our school’s history.  That's important and you should feel honored to have this opportunity.

Making the choice to do band this year, trying something new with a new teachers that you don’t know takes a lot of courage and I admire your willingness to take a chance with band this year and me as your teacher.

I am already proud of you and proud to have worked with you and the way we perform tonight doesn’t change any of that. You’ve already earned my respect as musicians and as young adults. Tonight’s performance is to share what we do with our community and most of all have fun.

Buffy's First Herding Lesson!!!

To celebrate her second birthday we took Buffy back up to Wisconsin for her first herding lesson.



She had a herding instinct test last year in which she did really well.  Buffy caught on quicker during the instinct test but she did a great job during her first lesson.  At first she was just distracted by everyone watching but once she got it, man did she go.

Jack Sparrow by The Lonely Island featuring Michael Bolton

No, I didn’t see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film last weekend. Honestly, the last film confused me so much that I am particular eager to revisit that universe right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I thought the first three films were a lot of fun specially the first one. It was a fresh take on the pirate genre and Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow is one of the greatest characters in film. Apparently I’m not the only person who feels this way.



Andy Sandberg came onto the musical landscape with his SNL digital shorts. First there was the epic “Lazy Sunday” and of course “I’m On A Boat.”



With the release of their new album Turtlenecks And Chains, they premiered the video to “Jack Sparrow” on SNL a couple weeks ago. I immediately thought this was the funniest thing Sandberg’s group The Lonely Island came up with but it left my wife slightly mystified and I understand why.

First off, you have to understand what is awesome and not so awesome about Michael Bolton. This 1990s adult contemporary singer was probably the furthest thing from “cool” growing up. He hit the charts with covers of classic soul songs like “When A Man Loves A Woman.”



So to have to him appear nonsensically with The Lonely Island is pretty weird but funny at the same time. When SNL does impressions of people often they create characters that do not even vaguely resemble the person they are trying to imitate, like Jimmy Fallon’s Barry Gibb. They add random aspects to their personality that may not make logical sense but somehow work just like Bolton being a geeky film fan.

The Lonely Island switched things up and play the straight man role pretending to be legit rap stars talking about clubbing. For once they are not making a fool out of themselves and their reactions to Michael Bolton are hilarious.

Of course this would never happen in reality. The song would stop and they would have a discussion but the idea that the song keeps going and they are trying to work it out while Bolton just can’t get on the same page is hysterical. He just doesn’t seem to get what is bugging the boys about this chorus  (which is well done and creates a really cool musical juxtaposition with the verse).

"Jack Sparrow" is both well-crafted and silly.  It's preposterous while somehow being logical and seriously seeing Michael Bolton dress us like Erin Brockovich, priceless.

Week 31: Being The Teacher Your Students Need

When I first started thinking about becoming a teacher I emulated the teachers that inspired me. My image of “Mr. Tang” was amalgamation of educators who I looked up to. I borrowed quotes and teacher techniques from these master teachers but I found that this was not a very successful way to go. Things that worked with others teachers didn’t work for me, so I started to develop a different image of “Mr. Tang.”

This new image of myself as a teacher was a closer reflection of who I was outside of the classroom and this got me pretty far. I developed confidence in myself as a teacher and was able to let certain parts of my personality come up to my students while maintaining a professional decorum.

This year I noticed that “Mr. Tang” wasn’t being as successful across the board. For the first time I taught a wide variety of grades from 3rd to 8th and the teacher I wanted to be simply didn’t work for all of my kids. I remember earlier in the year teaching a great 7th grade class and then teaching a 3rd grade class and have it not go nearly as well because I was more concerned about being a certain kind of teacher than reacting to my students.

I started changing whom “Mr. Tang” was depending on the age and the class and thing started clicking. A fellow teacher perfectly articulated this saying “Teaching is not about being the teacher you want to be but being the teacher your students need you to be.”

How I want to be as a teacher is relevant but it seems more important that I can adjust to my students. Sometimes I feel like I get whiplash changing the tone of my voice, my posture and the way I explain things for different grades. Some of it is unconscious and some of it is very deliberate. The tough part is that is all needs to be genuine.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have goals about the kind of teacher that you want to be, however you shouldn’t that pursuit blind you from the students in front of you. I don’t want to be a teacher who has to reprimand kids with a harsh tone of voice. Too bad, I teach third grade, if I don’t express anger to them, they don’t know the boundaries.

I don’t want to be a teacher who calls people out for minor jokes because of their implications. Well, I’ve got to, I teach middle school students. If I don’t have talk with a student for making a sexist joke, he or she may emotionally damage one of their peers. I don’t want to be a teacher who gives kids bad grades, but if I don’t I’m doing a service to my students.

Being the teacher your students needs is especially hard when you don’t know what your students need you to be.  I still don’t know what kind of teacher some of my students need to be this late in the year. I may never figure that out but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

I've given up on trying to be "Mr. Tang."  Being a teacher isn't about "being" someone, it's about "being for."

Don't forget when you teach that the song really isn't about you.

"Dancing In The Street" by Mick Jagger & David Bowie

I love bacon, I love peppermint stick ice cream and I love my mom's beef noodle soup. As much as i love those three things separately, they don't quite work together. Kind of like this song:



Mick Jagger, one of the greatest lead singers in rock music + David Bowie, the original pop music chameleon (anything you think that Lady Gaga is doing that is innovative Bowie did it first) +
"Dancing In The Street," one of the greatest pop songs ever that defined a generation
= . . . yeah. . . not such a good time.

I do admire how hard Jagger and Bowie seem to be trying to sell the song during this music video and there is something hypnotic about watching this train wreck of a song.  After watching this video you will feel something, maybe not what the artist intended but you will feel something  . . . and yes anger at me for wasting three minute of your time is totally understood. 

Why You Should Go See Bridesmaids . . .

Last Saturday afternoon Diana and I decided that we would visit the Garfield Park Arboretum. It was a gloomy day and we figured seeming some flowers and exotic plants would be a fun way to spend the afternoon.

However after a quick discussion and the fact that the Arboretum was a half an hour drive, my wife and I decided to run across the street to our local movie theater and watch Bridemaids.



While the trailer looked funny it was the fact that the reviews for this movie kept coming in really positive that convinced me to go. Three and a half stars from Roger Ebert isn’t something to scoff at and after watching the film I realize what the critics are so excited about.

Bridesmaids is raunchy. It features one scene in the first third of the film, which is a South Park scene come to life. There is liberal use of expletives and the subject of many of the conversations firmly earns the R rating. While it’s fun to see that woman can be just as gross as the guys. As great as these scenes are this is really not what the film is about.

This is a film about woman, but it’s not a chick flic.  It’s kind of a romantic comedy but it doesn’t have any of the clichés from that genre. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have written a script that subtlety articulates the way that woman interact with each other. Each conversation while laced with jokes speak to deeper feelings like when Annie played by Kristen Wiig freaks out at the Bridal Shower. On the surface it’s brilliant physical comedy but at the same time she is speaking to her own thoughts and insecurities adding a layer of depth and drama.

My favorite scene features Melissa McCarthy (the character in the trailer who burps), talking the Kristen Wiig. McCarthy plays this character as an vulgar more masculine counter-balance to the other  bridesmaids, but somehow in this quiet scene between her and Wiig she peels back that surface of the character showing a touching and powerful expression of friendship.

There are many scenes like this in the film reminding us how hard it is truly is to be a great comedic actor and how much heart this film has.  Bridesmaids a challenging film. It doesn’t go where you expect, it doesn’t resolve perfectly and it’s brave not only in it’s vulgarity, but where it goes emotionally.

Yeah, you come in expecting an all out raunch-fest and the film gives you a little of that but the other stuff, the rest of the film will really make you think about the woman in your life, the chinks in all of our armor and what it really means to be a friend.