A reader writes:

I’m currently student teaching. I’m very passionate about music and music education. A couple of years ago I felt a sudden terror when I recognized I was nowhere close to ready to be a successful teacher, and I started delving into as much material as I could and doing whatever else I could (camps, etc) to get ready. Your blog was one of the first good, free resources I found, and I’ve been reading ever since. So first, thank you for your contributions.

This past summer I had a friend start a music blog, and I thought, “Wow, that’s a great idea.” I love to write, especially in reflection and with the goal of learning from my…

The principal at the middle school where I used to work emailed us a link to a great website. It doesn’t really apply to band or music education, but there are a TON of topics covered on this site. So what is it?

The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone

anywhere.

All of the the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s…

The good news: Texas is ranked #1 in the country as far as education spending goes.

The bad news: Many school districts are on the brink of cutting numerous jobs to keep their budgets in line.
* Additional bad news: Texas is #50 as far as Medicaid spending goes.

The worse news: Not all of you are fortunate enough to live in Texas.

I see news articles posted on Facebook every week about the impending job cuts that are in the plans for next year in the Dallas and San Antonio areas. I’m sure this is a pretty universal thing this year. I know the budget shortfalls have been a big problem in recent years, but I guess I…

Back in January, NPR’s Planet Money podcast ran an episode entitled How Much Is A Good Teacher Worth? On the episode, they argue that the difference between the best teachers and the worst teachers is huge in terms of earning potential of the students over the course of their careers.

While some of the findings may be questionable as far as correlating grades and test scores with future success, as a general rule, I think the concepts do hold true and definitely worth a listen.

On today’s podcast, we consider a plan to dramatically grow the U.S. economy. The plan has nothing to do with banks, stimulus, tax cuts or the Federal Reserve. Instead, the plan focuses entirely on —…

Remember the first time you realized you were riding a bicycle by yourself? Probably not. But what about when you first got to drive solo? Your parents trusted you enough to give you the keys and go out on your own! It was a great feeling. If you’re like most people, you were so scared of messing up that you were nervous and overcautious. Do you ever see the “Student Driver” cars where they put their turn signal on two blocks before turning and check the mirror seven times before changing lanes?

For many of us, teaching was once like that.

For some, it still is.

Fast forward
What happened after a few years? You began to drive like a pro! Some…

Denise comments:

I am in a teaching program, half way through and I just completed my first to “teaching” classes.  Now I have this hugh feeling I’ve made a BIG mistake and that teaching isn’t what I thought it was or that I’m not cut out for it. Not to mention the outlook for finding a job looks bleak. Seems like the writing is on the wall…  Problem is I have been a stay at home mom for 13 years and don’t know what else I could do?  I really do not want to finish the program because I feel I am wasting my time, my money and my heart isn’t in it anymore.  I have always wanted to help…

I have been asked to participate in the Reform Symposium and will be hosting a session this afternoon called 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Explained Before My First Job. Feel free to join at 4:30EST today. I don’t normally do these online training things, so hopefully this works. Go to the link here.

A lot of these things are topics I’ve covered before, but here is what looks to be the outline for now.

…

KMB writes:

I’m starting student teaching this Spring and would really like some advice, tips, and resources to help me out. I’m sure 12th graders are very bright, and I don’t want to bore them. I also want to appear knowledgable and professional. Anyway, please contact me if you have any suggestions. Websites with lesson plans, blogs, the latest technology, etc. would all be helpful.

As a middle school band director with limited experience coming up with lesson plans and really has lost touch with edublogs lately, I’m throwing this one out to my readers. Leave links and answers in the comments.

A friend recently mailed me a copy of the book The Line and the Dot: Alternative thoughts on vision by Paul Gibbs. The book intrigued me because there is very little information on the outside of the book and I trust my friend’s recommendation. So I began reading a little bit. Tonight I came across the following excerpt:

During my time as a school pupil, I had learned a valuable lesson. In the religious education I’d received, I had two different teachers. They both taught me about Christianity, but one turned me off of God, and one turned me on to God. The first taught the program. The second taught passion.

The head of PSE agreed and gave me opportunities…

Ramona’s comment inspired me to write 15 Tricks To Transform Yourself From Classroom Bully Into A Favorite Teacher a few days ago. Yesterday, it inspired Joey to leave a comment. The excerpt that jumped out at me was this:

In response to Ramona’s post, I see 680 students some twice a week, some once every other week each as a class (30-35 students.) I found the best thing to do is to have generalized rules and consequences posted up and always refer to the posters. If I notice the class is coming in wild I start by reviewing them. I have what we should do posted up, and in my time out spot, I have the consequences. I found most…

On this post, Karen comments:

I need help. I’ve been teaching in NYC alternative high school for 9 years. I can’t get my act together. I can’t plan lessons, it just seems like such torture. my mentor(thank you UFT) keeps telling me to keep the objective in mind…well, I can’t seem to do it, am I in the Dip or am i just a dip? I don’t know where I would go if I didnt teach, but how can I get 20 lesson plans written each sunday? I can’t keep it straight, any suggestions?

Before I respond, I think you are in the Dip and need to press in a little bit further. You’ve made it through the tough part….

Ramona writes:

I am a first year teacher struggling with classroom management at the elementary school level. I have some logistical challenges because I don’t have my own classroom and travel between classes and schools with a cart. I also have almost 300 different students I see every week. But mostly my problem is that I don’t like to humiliate children and make them feel bad, which seems to be what most classroom management looks like. Of course a child feels embarrassed if you administer some kind of punishment to him or her in front of the whole class. But it seems like if I don’t do that, the kids will walk all over me and I will quit (sooner…

I have had countless discussions lately with some of the newer teachers around me about some general concepts. This is just a random list of a few of the suggestions I have passed along to some of them that might be helpful to you or someone you know in some way. And it comes you way free of charge.

1. Choose your battles
2. Bite your tongue
3. When someone offers you unsolicited advice, give them the impression that you are listening
4. When someone offers you unsolicited advice, listen to them and apply the advice as quickly as possible
5. Most unsolicited teaching advice is given because of a perceived urgent deficiency in your teaching
6. When talking with students about negative behaviors, don’t

…

This school year is turning out to be pretty crazy in a lot of ways. I’m now in my ninth year of teaching and am working firsthand with a third year teacher on a regular basis teaching 6th grade beginner band. I also have the opportunity to work alongside a first year strings teacher, a second year choir teacher, and also in the same district as a first year band director. So my hands have been pretty full trying to fill the role of mentor in some ways with these folks.

In addition, my efforts at running have slowed down substantially as I got a stress fracture on my foot in July, continued trying to run despite the pain (and…

The following comment was left yesterday and I thought it was worthy of its own article as I have seen numerous things of this type happen over the years:

This is my first year as a professional teacher; I have three (90-minute block scheduled) enthusiastic groups of students who have begun to test their boundaries. I love the students, and I want to keep them secure and in control. Perhaps someone might have some advice on a discipline problem I encountered yesterday:

Yesterday, almost half of my last class left two minutes before the bell rang. The chaotic clean-up process,…

This year I am in the position to be able to work relatively closely with two first-year teachers and a second-year teacher. I also am working full time with a third-year teacher. One of my primary objectives this year is to be able to talk through some of their challenges and hopefully offer some suggestions for how they can better grow as teachers through the process. I see them making a lot of the mistakes that I used to make. In my discussions with some of the more experienced folks around me, I hear them refer to these as rookie mistakes.

We all make mistakes in our jobs on a daily basis. Some mistakes that we make are more normal than…

So this week that just passed was my first week of the new school year. It was pretty much amazing. I have a new completely positive approach. I am a brand new Joel this year. There are two things that are paramount in my mind as I stand in front of the class every day. I want the band to have:

1. A culture of encouragement
2. An expectation of excellence

If I can model those two things, I am convinced that I can ensure the rest of the students follow suit. We don’t criticize other students, we encourage them. We don’t laugh at mistakes, we learn from them. We don’t point out problems, we provide possible solutions. As I’ve…

This totally has nothing to do with teaching, but it’s an interesting question. If you had one super power, what would it be? How would you use it?

If you’re wondering where this question comes from, I was listening to the latest podcast of This American Life about Superpowers and it struck me as something interesting. I thought I’d see what my readers thought. Plus it’s a nice change of pace from the beginning of school and inservices and all of that stuff.

Go check out more about the podcast here.

So again I ask; if you had one super power, what would it be? How would you use it? Discuss in the comments…

I just listened to a recent podcast of Radiolab entitled Words. They included a bonus video along with the podcast. Powerful images and sounds here. The video is below. If you haven’t listened to Radiolab, now is a great time to start.

As I approach my ninth year of teaching, I have begun to wonder about the effectiveness of my classroom management plan.

A brief summary
When I first started out, I allowed way too much stuff to go on. In the middle of my second year, I cracked down like nobody’s business and began what I might term my “dictator days”. Basically, I was a bully and made sure I was in charge of my classroom. I still wholeheartedly believe…

This week, I went to San Antonio for the Texas Bandmasters Association convention. I attended some really good sessions and took a few notes on my iPhone. Without spending a lot of time to expand on these notes right now, I thought I would post them so maybe someone else can benefit from them. After the convention, I’ll sit down later and flesh them out a bit more. Here are the notes from Days 2 and 3.

• Meet with parents prior to testing 5th graders
• Parent orientation at beginning of year 4-6 weeks into school year
• Take a class period to discuss procedures
• Teach basic reading skills and introduce counting system early (8th notes asap)
• Open cases on the

…