So You Want To Teach?

Over the last decade, I have read a handful of great books that forced me to think and consider a lot of things about the way I was living. I’ve mentioned some of these books before on the blog, but this week I read another one of those kinds of books and thought I would share more with my readers about some of these amazing books.

1. 1999 – How To Win Friends And Influence People (buy on...

I have been asked to pass along a request. Unfortunately, I had a pep rally this morning and a football game this evening.

I’m hosting the next EduCarnival at my blog (http://imadreamerteacher.blogspot.com/), and there aren’t a ton of submissions.  Since you have a widely read blog, I was wondering if you could post a short thing about how people could still submit today?  It’s too late to do it through the form, but they could email...

This is a video of Dave Ramsey presenting his 7 Baby Steps. Following the summary video are 10 more videos with more specific details. If you haven’t heard Dave Ramsey before, you need to subscribe to his podcast. Now.

The Baby Steps Intro

Budgeting

Baby Steps

Debt Snowball

The Emergency Fund

Retirement Investment

College Savings

Pay Off Mortgage

Be A Giver

Build Wealth

Live Like No One Else

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink (purchase on Amazon). Dave Ramsey has been recommending his latest book Outliers (purchase on Amazon) on his radio show lately but when I got to Barnes & Noble, I realized Blink was available in paperback and so was therefore quite a bit less expensive. I’ve heard Dave recommend it before, so I decided to go with the less costly alternative.

I began reading it this afternoon and came across...

A couple of years ago, I saw a few videos on YouTube of Taylor Mali reciting some of his poetry. I reposted one of them last night, and thought I would dig around and see if I could find some more. Here’s what I came up with.

The Impotence of Proofreading

On Girls Lending Pens

Reading Allowed

I Could Be A Poet

Speak With Conviction

Miracle Workers

Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior

By Taylor Maliwww.taylormali.com

He says the problem with teachers is, “What’s a kid going to learnfrom someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true what they say aboutteachers:Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of hisand resist the temptation to remind the other dinner gueststhat it’s also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we’re eating, after...

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Teachers who are looking for technology to implement in their classroom can find many different resources online. From presentation apps to educational microblogs, the Internet has everything teachers need to improve learning experiences and productivity in the classroom. Here are 15 free ed-tech resources worth exploring:

Empressr – Empressr is a free, online presentation tool. It can be...

I got my Google Wave invitation the day the first set of invites came out. Today on Twitter, a friend asked me if Google Wave was as amazing as he’s heard it is. My response was something along the lines of:

The potential of Google Wave is still pretty amazing, but the implementation of it so far is not there.

That being said, I have to keep in mind that it is still in alpha testing phases...

Today is the day. Thousands of new users will be presented with the opportunity to get their hands on Google Wave.

What is Google Wave? Google Wave is a brand new technology that positions itself  as the way Email would have been made if it were invented today. (Watch the 1:20:12 long video clip)

Imagine a combination between Email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, and Skype all bundled into one. Now imagine it being drag-and-drop easy, live-updated, and being constantly...

I got an email from a reader this morning and she sent told me that I might appreciate her latest blog post. She writes:

I read your blog.  I also write my own blog.  I started my blog when I wanted to quit.  I spent about a year thinking about that.  I realize now that I don’t want to quit anymore.  I thought maybe my latest blog about why I don’t want to quit anymore would be of interest...

This weekend, I read Back to School: Tips for Teachers on Facebook on the Facebook blog. In it, the author writes:

Some teachers stay away from Facebook altogether, while others — like some of my friends — have found creative workarounds such as only accepting friend requests from students who’ve graduated or those who are over the age of 18. However, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. In fact, it is useful and rewarding to...

This is a guest post from Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineClasses.org, an online college class resource.

Teachers and other education professionals who are interested in starting their own blog or integrating blogging into a classroom can find many online resources to improve their blogging experience. Many of these resources are free and easy to implement on a variety of platforms. Here are 15 no-cost tools to...

Do you hate your job? I just finished my third week of school and am excited about how much fun my job will be this year. It’s super exciting. I remember back when I was a first year teacher, though. It wasn’t quite like this. This was underscored this week when a couple of anonymous readers (disgruntled and hey) left the following comments:

It’s interesting reading all these comments and I was searching the internet for other...

On the day that the iPhone 3G was released, I rushed out to the local AT&T Store to pick up my very own. I was excited, so I rushed home and wrote 10 Awesome iPhone Apps (Band Director Style) and listed all of the cool things that I was going to download and use in class. Well, a year has passed and things have changed somewhat. So I thought I’d go back and look at...

I don’t use a whole lot of social media outlets, but I know a lot of my readers do. Over the last few months, I have added a few things to make sharing SYWTT articles easier. I’ve also added some rating type things where you can tell me how bad (or good) an article is. I find that Facebook and Twitter are by far the websites I spend most of my time on when I’m...

This year, we have done things quite a bit differently in our band classes. We have not spent any time really outlining classroom rules. In fact, we really have been operating on a rule-free teaching model. Earlier this week, I clarified my “don’t talk to me” policy. Beyond that though, we really haven’t gone over anything specifically. No lists of rules and consequences. No do this, don’t do this. It’s just been fairly smooth.

Of course...

If you haven’t visited Angela Maiers’ blog before, you’re missing out. Her blog turned two years old today. She has been blogging for almost as long as I have, and was one of the early commenters on my site who really inspired me to continue pressing on. One of the things I most respect about Angela is her obvious patience with children and her desire for them to be educated as well as they possibly...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how my friend Junior had posted on his blog calling for people to write about what kind of a legacy we wanted to leave. I have been thinking a whole lot over the past few months about my progression as a teacher, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to really flesh out some about what kinds of things I have been through.

I’ve sort of broken things...

I went to the dentist yesterday morning to get work done. They took my blood pressure before they started doing anything and it came out at 150/101. These are not good numbers. Not at all. I have had elevated blood pressure in the past, but never seen the numbers this high. Granted I was at the dentist, so the numbers tend to be higher there than other places due to nerves. But all things considered,...

“Welcome to education.”

“Deal with it!”

“Didn’t they teach you in college that you need to be flexible?”

‘What do you want me to do about it?”

“Wow, I wish I had it that good my first year!”

So you graduated and then spent all summer looking for a job. You got your job, get to the school, and suddenly the classes or students you have bear no real similarity to what they told you in the interview.

The good news...