Being An Internship Supervisor: The Audition/Interview
Today is the first day of our extended school year session, and there are three things happening. The first is the intern applicant visit. The second is that we have a new schedule to navigate. The third is that it is time to get ready to go in the last portion of this school year, AKA our extended school year.
I have no idea what we will be doing this week. Usually, it is our country of the month introduction, but I am not prepared for that right now. So, we might do some games. I like that idea - we can play WAR, Slapjack, Instrument Memory, Simon Says, Conductor, May I?, Board Games, and things like that. We might not. It will really depend on how we are doing as groups.
Our first day back after a school break tends to be pretty smooth. Day two is another story completely, but people should be pretty glad to see me in the music therapy room. We will do something - it may just be a week of reestablishing rules and expectations through the TMEs that I select in my sessions. At one point, summer sessions were for getting centers going, and I have this vision in my mind of doing this again, but it is difficult to get my co-workers to participate.
I am looking forward to my new schedule. We now have groups every other day instead of on consecutive days. I will see the same groups on Mondays and Wednesdays and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will help with the amount of stuff that I need to have out and available at any given moment. I can also prepare for one session and keep all the materials out for two days before putting things away. In the recent past, I had consecutive sessions for almost all of my 30-minute sessions which meant five different sessions per day rather than three. I now get to do three sessions per day - one for each pod group. This helps me preserve my brain cells during session implementation - we used to do things this way, and I have missed it dearly!
We have also added a classroom, shuffled teachers around, and spread out students from three classrooms into four. There will be five classes with new-to-them teachers or shuffled clients. Some of our clients have moved back to their homes and home school districts, so there will be some missing faces. That will cause a power vacuum that will be filled the way my clients know how to fill vacuums - there will be some angst and conflict on Tuesday once folks know what is going on. Day two is always a problem at my place of work - can't wait!
For now, though, I need to focus on how to embed an applicant in the midst of all of the rest of the things happening in my music therapy room. I need to get to work a bit early so I can clean up my office floor and clear my desk of things. I am making a conscious choice not to show the applicant the office space because it is not currently an office space for interns. It is a storage place and work area for tasks and visuals. I am in the process of cataloguing all of my visuals, so things are strewn around.
The applicant wants to use handheld percussion during their audition, so I will get those things out. I can use them throughout the next couple of days in a variety of manners. We may do some Play/Pass activities with my older students and some simple play TMEs with my other students today. I have plenty of TMEs that incorporate handheld percussion instruments, so why not?
After our first three sessions, we will have a break. I always feed my applicants a meal in the cafeteria so they can experience the food that I can offer as a perk. After that, we will have some time to talk about the internship program and about the applicant. I encourage questions from applicants because I want them to know everything that there is to know about the program before they commit to seven months of time with me. If I have current interns, I always make sure that they have time to speak to applicants without reporting back to me. Unfortunately for this applicant, there is no one else to talk to about the program. Only me.
We will have a bit of a formal interview towards the end of the day after all five of my sessions are finished. I have my typical questions, and I encourage questions as well from applicants. After that, it will be time to finish the interview and send the applicant on their merry way. I will be ready for bus duty, and then I will jump in my car and dash home to meet the water mitigation people and give them back their equipment.
I hope to have enough energy to start putting my library back together, but we will see if that happens. Tomorrow, I get a bunch of Amazon orders related to the library water issues, so I will have other projects to start then. At one point, I have to go to the actual local library to get a card so I can access some digital resources. I haven't been to the local library in a very long time, but I am ready to get started up again. I read six books in the past three days (yep, I read that fast!), so my to be read pile is shrinking. Going to the library is something that will be good for my mental and physical health this summer. (At least, I keep telling myself that!) I also think that I can pick up books from a local place rather than having to navigate downtown to get to the library. We'll see how it all works.
For now, I have about 30 minutes before I need to leave for work. My car is going to click over to 100K miles this morning - we are 25 miles away from that situation. I have to get my resources ready for this interview and then clean that pesky office of mine. Then, I will meet the applicant in the lobby, arrange for the guest badge, and get going for the day. Time to get back into my internship supervisor/director guise for a day. Let's see if it still fits me.
Happy Monday!
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