My interview was one-on-one with the principal, Mr. Joenks. Because I have been subbing in the Springdale schools for a year and a half, Mr. Joenks already knew me before today. As a result, the interview had an almost informal feel. He asked many serious questions, but I never felt like I was being grilled. Rather than feeling intimidated to be on the beggar's end of the exchange, it really just felt like we were having a conversation. The questions were tough, but I felt prepared to answer all of them.
My favorite question of the interview--Mr. Joenks warned me that it would be a tough question and told me that he didn't really have an answer for it--was regarding the teaching of controversial or potentially offensive literature in an English classroom. I answered that I think it is extremely important to try to expand students' minds. So often, there is a taboo surrounding any kind of profanity or vulgarity in the classroom. But why should this be? Students are engaging in--or, at the very least, exposed to--these things every day. One of the great things about literature is its use of themes that appeal to a reader's own life. So, if students use profanity or hear it in the hallways, why should they be sheltered from books like Of Mice and Men, which uses profanity not gratuitously but as a means of representing regional dialect? Why should students, many of whom are sexually active, not read books like Madame Bovary that address sexuality? It is when students a pushed beyond their comfort zone, when they are asked to confront issues that affect them directly, that learning truly occurs.
