I am applying for two programs this summer, the Park City Math Institute (again) and the Klingenstein Summer Institute. For these applications, one of the things I needed to do was revamp my resume. When I first applied for teaching jobs a few years ago, my resume was mainly academic stuff (e.g. college and grad school stuff). I hadn’t much experience (a couple years as a Teaching Assistant in grad school and my teaching practicum for certification in college).
Now I’m about to hit my four year mark of teaching (at the end of this year). And having things like “organized a conference on the interdisciplinary connections between history, sociology, philosophy, and science” doesn’t actually have much relevance to what I do. Cutting things out, and re-ordering and re-organizing everything, was a strange process for me. It was like I was saying hey you, yeah you, that part of your life is over! And it is. And I’ve known it for a while. My decimating my resume was just another instantiation of that.
Doing it also reminds me that I’ve actually accomplished a lot in three and a half years. It strange to think how far I’ve come, not only as a teacher, but as a member of my school’s community. I mean: hello, as I type this, I’m wearing my school’s logo-ed sweatpants. I never bothered to get a pair of sweatpants (or any logo-ed item) from UCLA when I was there. And I spent more time in LA than I have currently here. That says something.
Anyway, without further ado, my new resume:
Please, no “wow, you’re great” or “you have major mental issues” comments. You can make wording or formatting or font or design suggestions. In fact, they would be appreciated. Also if you know of any stunning teacher resumes (in terms of look/design) online, throw them in the comments if you can!
And yes, I know, I know, resumes suck and online portfolios rock. Which is why I have one which I semi-regularly update. It isn’t a “reflective portfolio” showcasing growth or anything like that. (That’s what this blog is for.) It’s just to remind me of the good stuff I’ve done.
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 
I apologize in advance for having to say it, but this does look great.
My one recommendation is that under the “Relevant Experience” section, you consider bolding each title/role you have played. They’re just a little hard to pick out as it currently is, and this would mirror the very nice formatting under your “Education & Certification” section. And that would make page 1 a little easier to read.
On page 2, under “Professional Leadership,” it might be useful to give each of the accomplishments their own bolded “slug” (i.e., header), again to give each accomplishment its own handle.
I realize this will require shortening each paragraph a little bit for page fit, but I think it would provide helpful cues as to where each of these leadership items fits in a general taxonomy of leaderly activities.
As on page 1, this would also help to visually balance out the “Additional Experience” section, which has bolded headers and regular text below.
Hope this is helpful.
Elizabeth (aka @cheesemonkeysf on Twitter)
You said that your experience is more important than your education, but you still put your education first, which sends a different message.
Also, lose the ALLCAPS.
Another perspective, FWIW– given that the credential is the sine qua non prerequisite for most K-12 teaching jobs, I did not find its presence above the job experience to be a mixed message. In fact, this is a pretty typical format for successful job seekers in the K-12 market.
I debated moving education below – but then the first page just looked like one big set of bullet points. I didn’t like that aesthetically. I went for form over function on this one. But I did debate it!
Sam,
I attended the Klingenstein Summer Institute in 1988. Back then the Institute was located at Teacher’s College. Phantom had recently opened and that was the show we attended. Pearl Kane arranged to have the lead actress come and talk to the group before the performance which was cool. There was a tremendous mix of people and on a personal note, I met my husband there…so good luck with the process! The Klingenstein programs are outstanding.