Get Ready For Reader Appreciation Month 2008 Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - October 28, 2008July 1, 20101 Thanksgiving is a holiday for remembering what we have and giving thanks to our God for His blessings. I like to spend the months of November and December reaching out and giving. I practice giving as a regular habit throughout much of my life, but I specifically focus in these two months on giving back to my blogging community. Last year I highlighted a number of readers with Reader Appreciation Month. At the end, I did some great summaries: 50 Classroom Management Tips I Have Learned This Month 47 Blogs That My Readers Are Reading Top 5 Character Traits Of Great Teachers 50 Reasons To Love Your Job As A Teacher I recently created a list of 10
Three Basic Classroom Skills Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - October 21, 2008July 1, 201013 When I began turning my band around during my second year, I received some of the best advice ever from one of my former band directors. He noted that he had observed three Rehearsal Skills that were lacking in most bad bands. These same three Rehearsal Skills are present in most great bands. The three skills are: Do not turn and talk to your neighbor when you are not playing. This eliminates the "but we were talking about the music" part of the "DO NOT TALK" equation. Sit still and quiet when the band director is working with another section. I don't have any idea how many times kids got up without asking to during my first two years.
Thank You! Personal by Joel Wagner - October 16, 2008July 5, 20103 I told one of my former college professors about my blog shortly after it first started back in 2007. She liked what she saw and decided to use some of my material in one of her classes. In fact, she used So You Want To Teach? as an assignment for one of her classes this semester. Each of the students was assigned to leave a comment on something that I posted on here. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from her last week asking for my mailing address so that her class could send me a card. The card came in the mail today and I want to thank Dr. Witt for her wonderful work and inspiration as
Life Lesson 5: Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit General by Joel Wagner - October 15, 2008July 1, 20100 Today is Blog Action Day. The topic of choice for this year is poverty. I want to approach it from a completely different viewpoint than most of the bloggers are. I want to look at the spiritual aspect of poverty. And seeing the multitudes, [Jesus] went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:1-3 (NKJV) Something that has become very evident to me over the past few years is just how self-centered I am. A lot of the time, I say selfish things as a joke, but I also realize
Life Lesson 4: Choose Your Battles General by Joel Wagner - October 14, 2008July 1, 20104 Everybody loves being right. Everybody loves to win an argument. What if we change our mindset completely? What if we aim not to win outright, but to win by letting the other person win? There are some situations where winning is vital. And there are far more situations where winning an argument will net no real benefit. These are the situations when it is okay to lose. In fact, losing may be the biggest victory of all. How do we choose? Dr. Laura Schlessinger often uses these three statements to evaluate if a battle is necessary: Is it immoral? Is it illegal? Is it fattening? If the answer to all three questions is "no," then it may do
Learning New Lessons — Tips for Rookie Teachers New Teachers by Kelly Kilpatrick - October 13, 2008June 25, 20162 This guest article features tips for rookie teachers and was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick,who writes on the subject of an online college degree. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com If there's one profession that generates both joy and frustration in equal amounts, it's teaching -- veterans will attest to the fact that they're extremely satisfied one day even as they want to tear out their hair the next. Those who are familiar with the ups and downs associated with the trade are able to adjust accordingly and not feel too stressed out even before the middle of the school year, but if you're a rookie who's just entered the world of teaching, here are a few tips to help you
Overhaul Your Clarinet Section Music Education by Joel Wagner - October 10, 2008July 1, 201011 I hear a lot of bands with good clarinet sections. I have a few bands with bad clarinet sections. I hear a few bands with great clarinet sections. What I will tell you in these next few paragraphs will definitely transform any bad clarinet section into a good one. They could even make a good section a great one. It's all about tone I have recently become convinced that one of the best indicators in the quality of a band is the overall band sound. By that, I mean the way that the band balances between sections, the way that the instrumentalists blend into their section sound, and the way that each person sounds individually. Technique is the easy part.
Positive Steps To Fix A Problematic Band Music Education by Joel Wagner - October 9, 2008June 25, 20161 My band sounds good. My band behaves very very well. My band is going to be great this year. This comes as the result of 6 years of learning from my mistakes. It wasn't always that way. When I got them in August, I didn't know how it was going to work out. They didn't listen. They didn't watch. They talked a lot. They were more interested in being social than in sounding good. They didn't sit in "Ready Position" much of the time. Their posture when they played was bad. Too many of them were on the back of their chair and not sitting up straight. Here is a realistic look at some things I have done this year to fix
Reminders Personal by Joel Wagner - October 8, 2008July 1, 20103 Becky writes: Joel ~ Thank you so much for your article on hope. I was sitting here staring at a stack of papers that need to be graded, wondering how much longer I can take the stress that is piling up on me. I am in the middle of KTIP (Kentucky Teacher Intern Program–for new teachers), and the extra work that is involved with it is about to push me over the edge. I need to step back and remember why I am doing all this. It is so easy to get distracted by all the meetings and never-ending to-do list. @Becky - I have to remind myself so much of the time. I've heard it said that often the
Restoring Hope To Your Teaching Job Inspiration by Joel Wagner - October 7, 2008June 5, 20164 I've noticed something lately. I have gotten a handful of comments and emails from people who seem to be teaching in what appears outwardly as a hopeless situation. I contend that the problem very rarely is in their situation. The problem rests in the lost joy and the long forgotten hope they once had. The dream is not shattered, it simply is not in sight right now. Why have we lost sight of that hope? Because we lack focus. My assertion is that we have lost focus because we are too busy reacting to events and items that try to wrestle our attention away from the important things. Jonathan wrote a great article about dealing with your mailbox last week. I think
Multitasking Virus In Our Classrooms Stress Reduction by Josh Waitzkin - October 6, 2008July 1, 20109 Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning, was the subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer. An eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth, he is now a martial arts champion, holding a combined 21 National titles in addition to several World Championships. Josh is president of the JW Foundation, an educational nonprofit-- www.jwfoundation.com He is currently training for the World Championships of his third discipline, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and lectures nationwide on the subjects of the learning process and performance psychology. Waitzkin lives in New York City. A few weeks ago, I returned to the classroom of Dennis Dalton, the most important college professor of my life. From the back of an amphitheater seating
5 Guilty Pleasures On My iPod Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - October 1, 2008July 1, 20106 The 4th edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival is up over at Teacher in a Strange Land. Our beloved host Nancy asks the question, "What five songs on your iPod do you consider guilty pleasures?" It's difficult to boil it down here with over 11,000 tracks (somewhere around 5,000 songs and 6,000 sermons) on my iPod, but I'll see what I can come up with. Here they are: The Devil Went Down To Georgia performed by Mariachi Sol De Mexico The song itself is not too off target for a Texas boy, but the fact that I recorded this off of a live performce video on YouTube makes it all the more funny. Mariachi Sol De Mexico's trumpets