When I finished teachers' college, it was a difficult time for jobs. I spent a year doing supply work and getting a fair bit of it, thanks to several schools who put me at the top of their short lists. Ironically, it wasn't one of those schools who gave me my first contract, nor was it the principal of one of those "regular" schools.
In the summer before my second year out, I received a call from a principal who invited me to interview for a long term placement covering for a maternity leave.
Seriously, she called me and invited me to apply.
How did this come to be?
Well, firstly, she was apparently one of those who interviewed me at the board level just to be put on the "eligible to hire" list. Clearly I was just too stressed out with being interviewed to really clue in to who it was that interviewed me, but also I certainly didn't figure that I would stand out in any was from the other million people that are interviewed at the board level. I was just glad to be put on that list.
After I was hired, the principal also told me that I'd supplied at the school where she had been working as vice-principal the year before. As far as I know, I was there twice and only twice. Unbeknownst to me, she had come to stand in the doorway for a while and watched while I was doing the supply teacher thing. "I thought they might eat you alive," she told me, "but I came and watched from the hallway for a while and was surprised by how smoothly things were going." I clearly didn't know she was watching and, to be honest, I have no recollection of what I might have been doing with the class. I only vaguely remember going to the school. To this day I always tell supply teachers that every time they walk into a school, it's an audition. Having been on the hiring panel at my current school several times, I know that's definitely true.
Finally, she also told me she remembered me from a few meetings we apparently attended together. I don't really recall meeting her there, but there you have it.
The point of this whole spiel is that I appreciate that someone wanted to support me getting a start in my career enough that she actually contacted me (when I should have been doing the leg-work, but hadn't heard about the job at all) and made it happen for me. She was hugely supportive of me teaching according to my own style and philosophy and encouraged my arts program in a school which was wonderful but in which my class was certainly not the norm.
To further sweeten the deal, what was supposed to be a six-month maternity leave assignment was changed at the end of the first week of school to a contract position. My foot was officially in the door.
Thank you Linda (even though you moved out to BC somewhere years ago and don't read this at all). I am grateful to this day for the opportunity you gave me to have my first class of my own.
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