Help! I’m On The Verge of Burnout!!! Do I Quit Teaching Or What Do I Do? Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - April 30, 2008July 6, 201622 Teachers get frustrated. It happens. It's a part of the job. This article explores the subject of teacher burnout a bit and includes some robust discussion in the comments. I got a comment on my article Valid Reasons Teachers Quit tonight: I am up past my usual time and I just decided to go on the web. I came across this. I have been teaching for seventeen years. Maybe you can help. Every morning I dread the thought of going to my job. This has been the worst year ever. I don't have the desire to ever teach another child. Last year a child brought a knife to school-told his friends he was going to kill me. This year I seem to have the
The Above-Average High School Graduate Comic General by Joel Wagner - April 27, 2008July 2, 20100 Scott Walker over at The English Teacher has been building up a little collection of comics he has drawn during staff development sessions (and a few others). I like his work, and enjoy reading his blog even when it has words and no pictures. I am featuring one of his comics a week here on So You Want To Teach? once a week (every Sunday sounds like a good plan) until I run out of them, or until he complains and asks me to stop sending people to his blog. I highly encourage you to go spend some time exploring his blog in the mean time! Leave him some encouraging comments also!
It’s The End Of The Year…Let’s Act Like Fools! General by Joel Wagner - April 26, 2008July 2, 20103 Is it just me, or do students seem to get to the end of the year and begin ignoring rules and classroom procedures that have been established all year long? This is my first time at my current middle school and it's worse than anywhere else I've taught before. Already. And TAKS is next week, followed by six weeks of school. I hear they'll get way worse. What are some strategies you use to keep the students on task as they seem to shut down at this point in the year?
Stuff About Joel Personal by Joel Wagner - April 23, 2008July 2, 201012 Matthew tagged me. Blame it all on him! With round 3 of TAKS testing coming up next week, we all could use a little break. The rules: The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer. Got it. 1) What was I doing 10 years ago? 1998. Wow, I don't really know! Ha. I was finishing up my sophomore
Mark Your Calendars, The Blog Revolution Project Is Coming… Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - April 19, 2008July 2, 201010 They say that April showers bring May flowers South Texas doesn't experience nearly as much rain as the Dallas/Fort Worth area does. I almost miss the weekly tornado warnings and lightning shows we had up there. But I like being able to see stars at night, it's a crazy cool trade-off. Nevertheless, April is the traditional month, at least according to the old adage, for rain. There have been quite a few links to So You Want To teach? coming in recently. I want to highlight them, as well as focus on a few other things as I look ahead to May. You see, May will be a record-breaking month for So You Want To teach? and you can join
The Commercialization of Public Schools General by Joel Wagner - April 17, 2008July 2, 20105 A few years ago, I remember that our school had televisions in every classroom, and they would automatically turn on each day during homeroom to show Channel One. I remember seeing it and watching it and wondering if it was really all that effective. I was reminded of this again today when I came across this article by Trent that asks basically the same question. His article (and the book he references) go much deeper than my pondering did a few years back. I was really inspired to read it, so I figured I'd share it with some other educators around and see what your take is on it.
5 Tips To Putting The Pieces of Your Life Back Together General by Joel Wagner - April 15, 2008July 2, 20104 I recently took my band to the UIL Concert & Sight Reading competition. We worked hard on the music. We worked hard in after school sectionals. We worked hard on passing classes to retain eligibility. The end result was that the band got first division in the Concert portion of the contest, and first division in the Sight Reading portion. That combination is called Sweepstakes. Putting together a performance like this takes its toll on everyone involved. As a result, I have fallen behind on a number of things in my personal life. The most notable is my housekeeping.Since I conduct the second band, it is made up of mostly 7th graders. This was their first year to go to
Turning The Ship: The Voyage To Becoming A Great Teacher General by Joel Wagner - April 14, 2008July 2, 20108 Dominga recently left a comment on the blog: I have a rough 5th grade class. most of them are hol overs and have behavioral problmes. There is too much attitudes(girls) there is no self control and self dicipline (two boys) what should I do. I've called parentsand it works for two days. I,ve take nots and had parents visit the school and no cigar. Give me advice. I see myslef sometimes not teaching for a good 10 minutes which is horrible. Most of the time i have to bribe them with candy oir snacks. But how far does that take me? I need a respons asap. thanx. I have felt
Who Wants Some Great Reading? General by Joel Wagner - April 9, 2008July 2, 20103 Then hop on over to Learn Me Good and buy a copy of his book. It is undoubtedly one of the funniest books I've read since becoming a teacher. I read it on Fridays in the fall while I was monitoring our school-wide detention. I keep the kids absolutely silent during detention, and that's hard to do while you're reading about 3rd graders named Plakton, crazy antisocial ex-coworkers, Star Trek jokes, and TAKS tutorials. The book documents the struggles of a first year teacher as he makes the transition from the business world to the education world. If you can't afford the price of the book, then his latest offer to email you a copy of the book might be
Test Drive SYWTT Forums Today Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - April 7, 2008July 2, 20102 I said I wasn't going to post again this week. The thought of having forums on here really got me excited. So I decided to invite you to go start testing it out. I have currently only one topic and one forum, but I want you to play around with it. Over the course of time (particularly over the summer), I will begin to really dig into editing and making the theme look better. I may experiment with a few different forum setups before deciding on one that I want to keep. For now, you can point your browser to http://forums.soyouwanttoteach.com/ and explore. Also, April 9th is CSS Naked Day. Check out So You Want To Teach that day to
Look Who’s Talking Now! General by Joel Wagner - April 7, 2008July 2, 20103 April is already shaping up to be a record-setting month for So You Want To Teach? We are well on our way to seeing 16,000 visitors or more this month. I am way behind on emails. Please forgive me! I am way behind on comments. I am way behind on reading other blogs. UIL is this Thursday. After that, things begin to resume some remote semblance or normalcy. Please don't expect me to begin catching up until Friday. The comments are taking off on here! I want to consider starting up a message forum and really transforming this site into a wealth of knowledge for teachers. I especially want to help out my new and prospective teacher buddies. According to
The Honeymoon Is Over: What Killed My First Teaching Job And 7 Tips For Getting Your Next Job New Teachers by Joel Wagner - April 3, 2008June 26, 201611 As I have written before, I was terrible at classroom management. My first two years were miserable. I hated teaching. Then it happened. I absolutely believe that I would be the same teacher today that I was then if it had not happened! You see, I wasn't fired but in a moment I lost my first teaching job. What happened? We had a friend of mine come in to work with the high school band and the two junior high bands. He is a retired band director and is an outstanding clinician. He came and worked with all three bands. My band (the second junior high band) was bad. I knew that. I had kids who would talk back to me and just
April 2007 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - April 2, 2008July 2, 20102 By the way, yesterday's article about quitting? Not true. April Fools. Thanks for all the wonderful comments. And I'm sure most of my regulars figured it out. But, as Waski pointed out: The things [I] describe do turn many good teachers off on teaching. With some of the silliness I’m presented with, I wonder at times why I bother putting up with it. Of course, most jobs have the silliness and ridiculous paperwork in one form or another. I love teaching. As Betty points out, teaching is so much a part of me. No matter if I leave the "education profession" or not, I will remain a teacher and will always find myself teaching in some capacity or another. I
I Give Up! 10 Reasons Why I Am Quitting My Teaching Job Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - April 1, 2008July 2, 201014 DISCLAIMER: Please read all of the comments and this article before taking this things too seriously. The reasons given in here are real concerns that I have, but they are definitely outweighed by a number of much more positive elements of teaching. For a more serious look at the situation, please read 9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick). I have been an advocate for teaching and getting new blood into the teaching pool since I started my blog. I love teaching. But I can't see myself as a teacher much beyond this school year. At least in the traditional sense of the word. So I give up. I am quitting my teaching job after this year. Why would I do