You're Fading Out, Can't Hear What You Say

Okay, it looks like I'm coming a little late to the discussion, but the big kids are talking about how sell yourself to teaching oriented schools. This was a total fucking gong show in my department last year, since the placement committee, the dynamic duo of the Old World Septuagenarian and Evil Columbo, seemed to have only the vaguest inkling that those schools even existed. What goes in a good teaching portfolio? What questions do teaching schools ask in interviews that research schools don't? For me and my office mates, these were inscrutable mysteries.*

The thing is, it turns out it's actually really hard to answer these questions. Let me try to explain why. Check out this advice from Ken, a commentor in Leiter's thread:

Candidates should show some understanding of what the teaching-emphasis job is like, an interest in doing it, and the ability to do it. I don't have stock questions I ask to probe for this, so I don't have stock answers or “things to say” to get through this.

Right. What I want to do is show understanding and enthusiasm for a teaching job. I can do enthusiasm no problem. The problem is, I have no understanding of teaching jobs, and neither do any of the senior profs in my department. Ask senior faculty about this stuff and, as Sisyphus once put it, you get that confused puppy, head cocked to one side "Aroo?" look. They're as in the dark as I am. So how are we supposed to figure out what to convey in my application package? How are we supposed to figure out how to prep for an interview?

I don't mean this as a knock at Ken. Like he says, there are no stock answers here, so what can you do? But that just means we're sort of fucked trying to figure this shit out.

--PGS

*Actually, the teaching portfolio question is still an inscrutable mystery. I'm giving myself another two weeks to figure it out before I go all Colin McGinn on your asses and declare the puny human mind too feeble to understand what goes in a good teaching portfolio.