America's Most Wanted

What makes for a great teacher, and how does one hire for it?

Of all the important tasks of a school principal, hiring great teachers is THE most important, and I say that without equivocation. Teachers are the "boots on the ground" who will have the most impact on student's lives, they are the ones who will be remembered, for better or worse, by their students, they will be the metric by which our school will be judged by parents and the broader community.

All that seems rather obvious. But how does go about selecting such teachers? Here are the traits I care most about and those I believe are less important. 

Critical Traits

1) Intellectual agility, depth, smarts-- The "techniques" of teaching can be learned, but intellectual acuity, depth of understanding in a candidate's subject area and the curiosity to play with ideas must be givens prior to a successful career in teaching. Smart kids, especially, are merciless on teachers who cannot "hang" with them, and it's unlikely that a teacher who is not mentally gifted and self-confident will be open to contemporary pedagogy which de-emphasizes lecture and instead emphasizes Socratic dialog, "modeling" in the sciences or constructivist design.

When reviewing candidates, it matters to me what college they attended, which gives me a window into ability, but also how they did while college students. I want to review their transcripts, partly to verify they have numerous classes in their subject area, partly to see how many times they "dropped" classes (for me, a real negative), partly to get a sense of their work ethic. But I also want to get them talking about ideas in our interview,  to seek how they shape their thoughts,  to see what "sparks" them. I want to see a kind of "twinkle" in the eyes when candidates talk about something important to them. That spark will ignite sparks in our kids.

2) A deep, genuine faith life-- This, too, cannot be "faked" or manufactured. Though I prefer to hire Catholic faculty members (because I believe the 'critical mass' of Catholic school faculty must be Catholic in order to sustain a Catholic culture), I am open to outstanding candidates from other faiths; my experience is that if they are deeply committed to the gospel, they contribute powerfully to the religious mission of our school. I ask about the Church they attend, the name of their pastor, their particular involvement in the life of their Church or if they're right out of college, if they were active in Newman centers or if they participated in service projects while in college. Even with young candidates, if they were  "arrested for being Christian, (there should be) enough evidence to convict them." I also ask a more open ended question to tackle a myriad of other issues: "Is there anything in your personal life that would raise concerns if you were a teacher in a Catholic school?" 

3) A "with-it-ness"-- Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said famously about pornography, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. " I cannot define "with-it-ness" for a teacher too precisely, but I know it when I see it, and I (and every student he or she teaches) know it when a teacher doesn't have it.  Let's be blunt: A good teacher must simultaneously manage 20+ individual kids in the classroom, create interesting lessons, hold kids attention through-out the lesson, keep attendance, grade papers, track which students are missing which assignments, respond promptly to parent concerns, make deadlines set by the principals, be "aware" of what's happening behind his or her back when writing on the boards, and be cognizant of students needing special attention, just to name a few. Brilliant minds are not enough, which is why it is sometimes true that middle school teachers make better high school teachers than those with Ph.D's from the university. Having the wherewithal to manage multiple things is not a learned behavior--either one has that presence or one doesn't. 

So how can that be determined in an interview? I don't think it really can, which is why we insist that every finalist for a teaching position comes and teaches an actual lesson to our students, witnessed by our department chair and our academic dean or me. How cognizant is that teacher of what's happening in the back of the room? How well does that teacher engage unengaged students? How responsive are they? The answers are obvious if you can watch a teacher as he or she teachers. And you'll also be able to confirm some of your initial insights from the interview about mental agility, confidence, and poise.

4) Love for students, passion and empathy--Danny Meyers, a New York restaurant owner of some renown, says in his book "Setting the Table," that he looks for "Fifty-one Percenters" when he hires people to work for him. Forty-nine percent of a successful employee, he says, is competence and skill. But fifty-one percent is one's ability to work with others, one's empathy and attitude. The same is true of teachers. If a teacher is not empathetic and other-oriented, truly interested in the welfare of his or her students, then he or she will be no more than a technician and never truly a "teacher." Walk around a typical high school and observe carefully: who are the teachers talking to kids as they walk down the hallways? Who is kibitzing with students after class? Who's laughing with the kids as they laugh? These are the teachers who will make an indelible mark on the life of his or her students. 

There's no easy way to measure this in an interview, but there are indications. How well do the candidates listen? How genuinely interested are they? How do they talk about others in their story-telling? Do they steer conversations back to themselves?  I like to ask this question: "Can you talk about a person whose life you have impacted?" I think persons who have the instinct and desire to be a teacher should be able to answer that question pretty convincingly. And if they have a true love for kids, a principal will never really have to worry about their work ethic: the limited time to make a positive impact on a kid's life is too short to waste. 

Not particularly critical

There are other traits I am less keen about.  I don't care if the candidates are "certified" or not--in my experience, certification is no guarantee of quality, and getting certified often prevents a candidate from taking classes which delve deeper into his or her subject area. Give me candidates who've taken 300/400 level classes in the humanities, math and the sciences rather than candidates whose transcripts are loaded with 100/200 level education courses!  Because Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and other accrediting agencies for Catholic schools no longer require teacher "certification," I've never understood why many Catholic school systems insist on it; in my mind, it unnecessarily shrinks the pool of excellent candidates, when in fact I believe I am capable of making a determination of "qualified" or "unqualified" without a college of Education's stamp of approval. We have enough competitive disadvantages to overcome in the market place (such as salaries!) without self imposed wounds! 

If I am hiring a teacher for a core academic class, I also don't care if he or she can double as a "head coach"  in a varsity sport. In fact, the expectations on high school coaches have become so demanding, and high school athletics so time consuming,  that I generally prefer core teachers are NOT head coaches. I want the teacher's energy spent on designing good classes and getting graded work back to students in a timely manner, and too often, good coaching trumps good teaching.  On the other hand, assistant coaching is usually a nice complement to teaching, in that assistants are less likely to obsess over game planning, less accountable to the athletic community and less likely to bear the emotional burdens of the head coach, but can still build healthy, positive relationships with kids.  If I can find candidates who are satisfied being assistant coaches, it also tells me where their priorities are. 

Application procedures matter, too.

Smart, creative teachers have options for employment, and we need to remember we're competing for them just as much as they are trying to prove their value to us. So how we get on their radar matters. Here's two mistakes we often make:

First, we create dreadfully dull job announcements--heavy on the procedures, very scant on the exciting opportunity that this opening provides the candidate. I believe all of us should develop a 2-3 paragraph statement about our schools which is upbeat, positive and optimistic, linked to our best school videos and tied to our web pages--and this statement should become the introduction for every job we announce.  This is a life decision for the candidate, and we should trumpet what a good life it could be for them!

The second mistake we often make is we bury candidates with paperwork requirements on the front end of the application process. If we want to undercut our chance of getting smart, creative people who are being pursued by other schools, all we have to do is require them to fill out criminal background permission forms, verification of employment, obtain written letters of references, official college transcripts and the like as the first step in the process! For sure, we're going to eventually need these things, but as a second step in the courtship, after they've met us, taken a tour of the school, and are assured that from our point of view, they're serious candidates. No sense asking them to do all that stuff if they're not--and frankly, it's easier on us not to have to track all of that if we're really not interested in them. 

Instead, at the front end, I recommend requiring only a resume and a cover letter, which is common for job searches in other industries.   That's enough information for us to winnow down who we might want to interview. If we invite someone for an interview or practice teaching unit, we would then ask them to bring in an unofficial or official transcript, and while they're in the school, ask them to fill out the other necessary paperwork. I'd also suggest, as part of their interview, that someone gives them a tour of the school--whether that be the interviewer or someone from admissions, show them where their room might be, and answer questions they might have. 

If we like the candidate, some other school likely does, too! It's really important to understand we're selling them as much as they're selling us! And if we REALLY like the candidate, and worry we may not be able to match salary offers with a competitor down the street, consider offering a signing bonus. Especially for young people getting their first job, they often have very little money between graduating and beginning work in the fall, and a one time cash outlay of 2 or 3 thousand dollars can often make all the difference. Furthermore, signing bonuses don't obligate our school for the future as offering a higher salary would.