Saturday, February 22, 2020

February Week 4: Curriculum Vitae

Job 1: WalMart Checker. Proficient in:
  • Checking out customers, handling currency, providing basic teenage customer service
  • Taking it. Just taking it all with a damned smile
  • Memorizing the bar code numbers for all the baby formula and dog food in the store
  • Encouraging fellow employees not to despair
Job 2: Cloth World Associate. Proficient in:
  • Assisting customers with fabric, notion, and pattern choices
  • Estimating yardage requirements for last minute Halloween costumes
  • Praising projects of customers desperately needing affirmation
  • Arguing with fellow college-aged employees about fabric
Job 3: Resident Assistant (College Dormitories). Proficient in:
  • Repairing broken items before checkout
  • Imparting illicit knowledge
  • Letting people be
  • Patrolling hallways and common areas like a negligent security guard
  • Doing the minimum requirements to fulfill job duties for free room and board
Job 4: First grade teacher. Proficient in:
  • Assisting functionally illiterate parents in filling out vital forms
  • Wrapping supplies in kraft and tying with twine
  • Deftly avoiding sexual assault in my own classroom in front of first graders
  • Making do with nothing in order to provide everything to everyone
  • Accidentally self-identifying as Jewish and playing along all year
Job 5: First grade teacher's aide. Proficient in:
  • Assisting with planning and implementation of lessons with lead teacher
  • Copier repair and functionality
  • Picking up dry cleaning and diet coke with lemon
  • Recess and lunch duties in all weather situations
Job 6: First grade teacher. Proficient in:
  • Individualized, differentiated instruction
  • Reading remediation
  • Rabbit care
Job 7: Middle School Math teacher. Proficient in:
  • Developing school-wide mathematics curriculum, scope and sequence, and plans
  • Rebuilding school library 
  • Teaching middle school mathematics including Algebra I
  • Limited Vietnamese, Romany dialect, and Portuguese slang
  • Celebrating and understanding immigrant and refugee families' culture and experience
  • Checking for lice
Job 8: Stay at home mom. Proficient in:
  • Feeding, clothing, and caring for three children for 12 years
  • Keeping other people alive 
  • Selecting appropriate education, health care, and extracurricular options
  • Gardening, sewing, household chores, home repair, girl scouting, dance mom duties
Job 9: Middle School Math teacher. Proficient in:
  • Conferencing with parents, colleagues, and students for exceptional outcomes
  • Mentoring new teachers
  • Light janitorial, counseling, maintenance, and event planning duties
  • Making and covering up huge mistakes
Job 10: Middle School Special Education teacher. Proficient in:
  • Supporting classroom teachers' efforts to educate students with special needs
  • Gathering evidence and evaluating data to improve student results and raise test scores
  • Navigating relationships with burnt out and negative coworkers to maintain sanity
  • Crowd control 
  • Mediating dangerous situations with students and adults
  • Alleviating burdens of coworkers in exchange for Dr. Pepper and chocolate croissants 

5 comments:

  1. I'm writing one of these in my head as we speak, but it's not nearly as good as yours. So many wonderful, clever lines here. Like this one: "Limited Vietnamese, Romany dialect, and Portuguese slang"

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  2. Love this -- very witty at times. You're hired.

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  3. Ha! This is great. I particularly liked all the qualifications for "Resident Assistant" and "Accidentally self-identifying as Jewish and playing along all year."

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  4. I laughed out loud, and now you've inspired me to think about one of my own. I wish I'd thought of it. You're so clever.

    I gasped at "Deftly avoiding sexual assault in my own classroom in front of first graders." I loved "Taking it. Just taking it all with a damned smile. And I thought Job #2 was perfect for you!
    I've never had Dr Pepper, but I would definitely alleviate burdens for chocolate croissants.

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  5. "Deftly avoiding sexual assault in my own classroom in front of first graders!" "Accidentally self-identifying as Jewish and playing along all year!" "Rabbit care!" I loved ALL of this post. (But the sexual assault—Jesus.) So well written. Master of tragecomedy.

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