Old Monk And Not The 'FELLOW'

TEACH FOR INDIA

"One day all children will attain an excellent education"

This post is about my experience during the selection process for the prestigious Teach For India Fellowship (2013-15). But first let me tell you about the whole selection process.

Application Process

The application process had the following steps:

Register: The first step of the application process was to register with Teach For India by providing basic information.

Apply: The second step was to fill in the application form. Some basic information was asked, we could also mention our achievements and thoughts.

Selection Process

Fellows were chosen, based on a multi-stage admission process. The selection for the 2013 Fellowship included the following stages:

Review of online application.

Phone interview (not applicable for all candidates; certain candidates may have been invited to the Assessment Centre stage directly after their online application was reviewed).

Assessment Centre, which was a full day session where the applicants had to go through a group discussion, a sample teaching session, a written critical thinking test and a personal interview.

Step 1: Online Application and Review of Online Application

Aug 29, 2012 was the first application deadline. I registered and completed the form well before the deadline. The form had a few questions and each of them focussed in the leadership quality in the probable Fellow.

Step 2: Telephonic Interview

Based on my online application I was shortlisted for the telephonic interview which was the next step in the selection process. I received an email on the 10^th of Sept from TFI confirming my candidature to the next stage which was a telephonic interview. And to my surprise the interview was scheduled on the very next day, 11th Sept. It wasn’t that I have had experience of series of telephonic interviews, butterflies in stomach but I was quite unperturbed as there was not much to prepare, I just had to be myself and it would be just fine.

 

I was to get the call between 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM IST. Blocking the hour seemed pretty intelligent. To my surprise, the interviewer was himself a Fellow (2012-14) who was teaching I think, in a municipal school in Mumbai to 3^rd grade students. First, he very politely introduced himself, narrated a bit about the whole Teach For India movement and also mentioned that if I had any doubts or queries I can always ask at the end of my interview.

The questions he asked were pretty obvious and were totally from the planet Earth, I can say it sounded more like any other interview. To mention a few of them;

1) Tell me something about yourself?

2) Where did you hear about us?

3) Why do you want to be a Teach For India Fellow?

4) Why Teach For India and not anything else?

5) Have you had any teaching experience?

6) Have you told your parents about the fellowship?

And few more, I don’t exactly remember. The interview went well with minor blips otherwise. At the end, he asked me if I had any questions to which I inquired as to how many offers TFI this time planned to make, what I actually intended to know was the conversion ratio of the applications and final offers made. He provided with lot of info and stressed on the fact that TFI has no specific number as to how many offers would be made or so,TFI strictly goes for quality and hence the final number of offers made could well be deviating from what they earlier thought. Also, he told that approximately 1 in 10 candidates make it to the final which I thought was an achievement in itself.

My interviewer also informed me that I would be getting my results in a fortnight’s time and roughly after about 15 days, I got this message from TFI confirming my progress to the next round - Assessment Centre

The Message

Dear Rohit,

We thank you for taking out time to talk to our representative.

Your strong academics, demonstrated leadership, and commitment to the community indicate that you surely have the potential to be a Teach for India Fellow, and have a tremendous impact on the lives of our students in India.

We are pleased to inform you that you have advanced to the next round of our Selection process: The Assessment Centre

Step 3: Assessment Centre

I was so thrilled at getting this particular email, for a moment I couldn’t take it for real. Was habitual to the fact that luck was always on the other side of the fence.However, after the stoned period sat, collected myself and read the further instructions attached.

All invited candidates were supposed to participate in the morning Assessment Centre activities, followed by a mid-day evaluation. After the mid-day evaluation, selected candidates will be invited for a personal interview, which will end by 6.30pm at the latest. And the PI would be ranging from anything between 40 min to an hour.

All the shortlisted candidates for Assessment Centre had to prepare a sample lesson of 5mins, while the other candidates and interviewers would be participating as students. During this session, we were supposed to teach a lesson for a specific grade level and subject area which we had planned. We were free to choose from any topic from any subject area for our lesson plan, but restricted to grade levels from 2nd to 6th standard. We were supposed to adhere strictly to that 5-minute time limit. In addition to the 5 minutes of teaching time each candidate was allowed 1-minute of preparation time to set-up his/her materials for the sample teaching lesson. We could bring any material we needed for the lesson.

After the sample teaching lesson, we had the next activity – Group Discussion round. In the group discussion, we were given real challenges affecting the schools where Teach For India Fellows teach. Ours topic for discussion was the high and continuous ‘drop out’ rate in a particular municipal school in Delhi. What could be the possible reasons and the probable solutions, we had to figure out 3 major problems and necessary remedies in 15mins.

The next activity was basically to check the problem solving ability of the candidate. During this session, we had an independent problem solving activity that tested our ability to analyze and synthesize the type of data that teachers use on a daily basis.

After all the morning activities were conducted, selectors evaluated each candidate’s performance and then moved them to the Personal Interview round. Selectors informed the candidates of their Mid-Day Evaluation Results and selected candidates were invited to the Personal Interview after the lunch break. The Mid-Day Evaluation decision was entirely based on our performance during the morning’s Assessment Activities only. In my batch, a group of 6, 4 were shortlisted for the personal interview including me.

Again relieved, the fact that I am not going home before the final interview was satisfying rather than thrilling. I was happy but battle was half won and I still had an about-hour long interview hovering over my head. My interviewer was the ‘Director of Training and Student Impact at Teach For India’ who also happened to be a Teach For America Fellow. Now as I mentioned that the personal interview would range anything from 40 mins to an hour, my interview lasted for a good 45mins,the questions ranged from academics,college,extra curricular, SWOT analysis, leadership roles and a situational activity, where I was to play a teacher in a municipal school, there were some teachers who resorted to corporal punishment, I had to talk to the principal in regard to the same and ensure an immediate ban on corporal punishment.And,also she asked me what did I do to keep a track of the daily routine/things-to-be-done, to which I replied I put it in my mobile. I was actually not prepared for this but she instantly asked if she can see it, my daily schedule! Totally taken aback by what just happened, I replied cautiously,’Yes, sure mam!’ And there I was, took my mobile out from my bag, switched it on, quickly got to drafts and showed her my regular routine.Thankfully,I have had this habit of keeping a note for a few months now.

This concludes parts from my experience during the whole process. I was informed that I would get the results by the 28^th Oct, which was not more than 15days time.

I would like to think that I did in my powers my best and it would really have been great news if I was offered the fellowship.But, unfortunately I was not amongst the selected who were offered the Fellowship. The experience was a different one, it would have been much better had I been offered the fellowship yet participating was a stepping stone I would say! I wish all the 2013-15 Fellows the very best and am really proud of the fact that something like this is working today for the better tomorrow, a better INDIA.

Cheers GUYS!!