Middle School Humanities

OPEN POSITION

Middle School Humanities (ELA/Social Studies) Guide (Teacher)

2024-25 School Year
Live job Post: https://shorturl.at/fDKW4

 

About Millennium School

Millennium is an innovation lab for whole-self development. Our aim is to re-imagine middle school for the 21st century. Instead of seeing the middle school years as “awkward” and “difficult,” we think they’re the most important years to prepare students for the path to happy and successful adulthood. We’ve built a team of leading educators, researchers, and adolescent developmental psychologists, and together we’re designing a new model for middle school: one that combines highly engaging and experiential academics with an approach that is social, personal, and rooted in the real world.

Bold Dedication to Whole-Self Development, Mindful Awareness and Social Emotional Learning

At Millennium, we believe that the Inner World of an individual is just as important as the Outer World. We embrace this exploration boldly. Most traditional education involves teaching important facts, skills and concepts, yet often overlooks the focused development of our true unique and authentic selves.  Ironically, research consistently indicates that it is exactly this focus during adolescence that cultivates a foundation for greater self-awareness, well-being, and success later in life. At Millennium, we engage students in significant self-reflection and social-emotional development each day, leveraging research- based practices within a safe and inclusive environment. The key to our developmental model is the role of the “Guide” (teachers). Millennium Guides do more than “Teach” content; they also serve as mentors for our students. By actively embodying their own humanistic, spiritually-grounded (secular),  mindful wellbeing, Guides serve as models and coaches for students, individually and as a collective group of educators.

Practiced commitment to Social Justice & Equity

At Millennium, we celebrate diversity as a portal to ourselves and a peaceful global community. We know that it takes commitment and prioritization to offset systems of oppression and implicit bias. We are committed to becoming a fully anti-racist multicultural organization that is helping to transform society. This means we are constantly learning about systemic, cultural, and personal barriers to equity in diversity, and creating structures of accountability that disrupt and uplift.

The Role: Humanities (ELA/Social Studies) Guide

We’re looking for a full-time Humanities (ELA/Social Studies) Guide. Guides develop and deliver Quests to Grade 6-8 students, which are interdisciplinary inquiry-based courses aligned to defined learning objectives that last approximately 8 weeks and take place four times per year. Quests are project-based and involve authentic assessment practices. The Humanities Guide also serves as an advisor to a group of students, assists with delivering experiential programs, and helps deliver social-emotional lessons to students.

Equally importantly, we look for teachers whose experiences demonstrate the following attributes:

 

You have a passion to help yourself and others grow. You accurately observe students’ strengths, personality, and challenges; you have a strong sense of what excellence looks like in given areas of study; you combine the determination to lovingly challenge students with the compassion and wisdom to know when to be patient or to step back.

You have a calling for and a deep appreciation of adolescents. You know youth culture; you love the uniqueness of this age. You see middle school as a time of transformation, not just in intellectual development, but also across social, emotional, physical, ethical, and creative intelligences.

You’re on a lifelong learning journey and cherish the adventure. Whether through vocation, travel, personal study, reacting to challenging life experiences or otherwise, you’ve undergone and can articulate your learning journey. You’ve developed personal habits and mindfulness practices that support you in continuing to grow.

You are excited about contributing to a Lab School. We are on a quest to re-imagine education.  As an educator at Millennium, you excitedly engage with experts, participate in professional learning, and are not afraid to experiment and learn from your experience.  You collaborate with others to search for best practices, measure their impact, and share them with the wider community.

You relish experiential instruction and the opportunity to personalize emergent learning.

You comfortably exist in and naturally model authenticity. Through experience and practice and perhaps your own mentors, you’ve developed an awareness of what authenticity looks like, and are comfortable being yourself.

You are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. You have openness to all the cultures in our community, see interactions in learning through a social justice lens, and are willing to look at your own beliefs and bias to develop and support anti-racist curriculum and learning.

You are committed to contributing to school life outside of the classroom. At Millennium, learning happens in and outside of the classroom, including the broader San Francisco community. Learning is linked to opportunities for exploration, skill development, and discovery. We are a small team and value collaboration. We help colleagues and students when needed.

Structure

A Humanities Guide generally teaches Humanities Quests (classes) to approximately 40 students in two sections and holds daily Advisory for their cohort of (10) students on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  On Wednesdays, all Guides facilitate a deeper SEL Advisory circle (Forum), a grade-level meeting of experiential, social-emotional, or social justice programming, and help facilitate our Wednesday afternoon expedition-based Real World Program.
All Guides attend Morning Meeting and take turns leading a mindfulness practice..
Faculty or team meetings are generally after school two days per week.
The school day is from 8:30-3:30 pm for students. Faculty generally arrive at 8:00 am and will remain at school until 4:00pm, except on Faculty or team meeting dates, which run until 4:30pm.
All team members share supervision duties throughout the week (approximately 2.5-3 hours).
Faculty actively participate in real-world expeditions, including camping trips, domestic and international class trips, and weekly excursions into SF on Wednesday afternoons.
Faculty are involved in admissions events three Saturdays (one in December and two in January).
Faculty are expected to be visible and present at school events.
Please note that this job description is not exhaustive and does not cover or contain a comprehensive list of activities, duties, or responsibilities.  As a lab school, we continually review and update all areas of school based on experience and best practices.
Start Date: Week of August 5, 2024. Summer professional development and curriculum preparation is expected in July-August to prepare for the school year.

Requirements:

Passionate about “Whole-Self” development as the purpose of adolescent education.
Dedication, passion, and demonstrated experience “guiding” students’ social-emotional and wellbeing development as an advisor, counselor, Dean, or other capacity.
(Preferred) 10+ years of experience teaching Humanities, Social Sciences, English Language Arts, or related field, preferably to Middle School students.
Demonstrated experience and commitment to personal development and improvement.
Experience designing, developing, and implementing experiential curriculum.
Advanced degree in related subjects or Education, or equivalent real-world experience.
Demonstrated experience with project-based learning and other progressive pedagogies.
Demonstrated experience supporting a wide range of learners.
Demonstrated experience with mindfulness and social-emotional learning.
Demonstrated experience collaborating with families (parents) in school-based settings.
Demonstrated, experienced commitment to our school’s mission and values.
Dedication to advancing anti-racism and social justice.
Excellent communication, social and problem-solving skills.
(Preferred) Expedition or trip leading experience.

Application Process

To apply, please send your resume to hiring@millenniumschool.org
Millennium School is an equal-opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation and evaluate all candidates based on merit.
More information at www.millenniumschool.org.

Compensation and Benefits

This is a full-time position. Millennium recognizes the incredible work that educators perform on a daily basis. When compared with peer schools and the greater Bay Area and California markets, Millennium currently compensates teachers at the 95-100% percentile or above.
Pay for this position is dependent on experience and education and ranges between $77,557-$158,714.  The median salary of the faculty team in the 2023-24 school year is $105,798.
The position includes retirement and health benefits, disability insurance, commuting assistance, professional development opportunities, and vacation leave.

Updated: Jan 4, 2024

Tagged as: Middle School