Students will be able to compose a resume on Google Docs and share it with the teacher.
Two wonderful things happened today. First, I found out that I passed my last state test required to get my official teaching license. It cost hundreds of dollars to transfer my license from Massachusetts, but I will have a job next year. This is a serious relief. Second, my student whom I helped with a resume last week got hired. The manager told him it was in part due to his resume. All his friends were talking about it today, so when we were in the computer lab creating resumes using Google docs, they were extremely engaged and took it very seriously – after all, one of them got a job because of it. I’ve never had such buy-in all year. I’m thrilled.
I did have to beat down on one particularly difficult to work with child; he seems to regularly thrive on all attention, positive or negative. He was loudly exclaiming how stupid it was to make a resume. He couldn’t remember the last name of a guy he worked for, and he wasn’t following directions that everyone else seemed to figure out. Our kind librarian was trying to encourage him and he continued to berate her and the assignment. I was helping a student several chairs away, and we had the following discussion in full hearing of the rest of the room:
Me: You should listen to me and Mrs. S. We have something you don’t have.
Him: What?
Me: A resume.
Him: So?
Me: And a job.
Him: I don’t give a crap.
Me: You don’t have a crap to give! You only get to give a crap if you have a job! But you can’t give a crap. Because you don’t have a job, because you don’t have a resume.
Students getting annoyed with his antics: Boom! Way to go, Miss!
Part of me feels guilty stooping to the level of publicly insulting my 16-year-olds. However, I think it is important for my students to understand that the successful adults around them all have resumes; the unsuccessful ones don’t. This type of cultural capital (gotta get my sociology in there) is crucial for my students – rural, sheltered, ignorant students – to understand what they need to be successful in modern America. Every teacher at our school has a resume; not because we’re getting ready to leave at a moment’s notice, but because that’s just something you need to keep track of. If I can successfully drill this into their heads at 16, their working lives will be much the better…
Leave a Reply