10 Things I Wish Someone Had Explained Before My First Teaching Job New Teachers by Joel Wagner - January 8, 2011June 5, 20162 I participated in the Reform Symposium recently and hosted a session entitled 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Explained Before My First Teaching Job. 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. Professional Sanity Get a handle on classroom management early Practice selective ignorance Don’t argue with students The phone is your friend Learn from the experience of other teachers Ask questions When someone offers you advice, try to implement the suggestions; if they don’t work, figure out why not and try again Learn to listen Have fun Kids feed off of whatever energy you transfer One of the top ways to fight burnout is to
Help A New Student Teacher Out With Resources New Teachers by Joel Wagner - January 6, 2011January 6, 20118 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.
It’s Not Our Beliefs That Transfer…It’s Our Passion Inspiration by Joel Wagner - November 25, 2010June 16, 20160 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 to teach
Make Learning Fun: Pacing Your Classes, Teaching Lines and Spaces [AUDIO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - November 17, 2010November 17, 20101 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
Lesson Planning 101 General by Joel Wagner - November 9, 2010November 20, 20100 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.
15 Tricks To Transform Yourself From Classroom Bully Into A Favorite Teacher New Teachers by Joel Wagner - November 6, 2010November 20, 20108 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 rather
Quick List of 50 Teaching Tips General by Joel Wagner - October 14, 2010November 20, 20102 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. Choose your battles Bite your tongue When someone offers you unsolicited advice, give them the impression that you are listening When someone offers you unsolicited advice, listen to them and apply the advice as quickly as possible Most unsolicited teaching advice is given because of a perceived urgent deficiency in your teaching When talking with students about negative behaviors, don't chase other adults away, they could be
Where Have YOU Been? Personal by Joel Wagner - October 13, 20100 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 reduced
What To Do When Students Flagrantly Disregard The Rules Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 24, 2010September 24, 20108 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, which I will adjust, contributed to their opportunism, but I was shocked, angered, and embarrassed that this happened. I took
Rookie Mistakes New Teachers by Joel Wagner - September 22, 2010September 25, 20102 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
Check-In: How Was Your First Week? General by Joel Wagner - August 28, 20104 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:A culture of encouragementAn expectation of excellenceIf 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 said before, when things settle
Super Powers General by Joel Wagner - August 18, 2010August 18, 20107 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...
Words Inspiration by Joel Wagner - August 15, 2010August 15, 20100 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 summaryWhen 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
Texas Bandmasters Association 2010: Miscellaneous Thoughts Day 2 & 3 Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 29, 2010May 29, 20160 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 floor –
Texas Bandmasters Association 2010: Miscellaneous Thoughts Day 1 Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 27, 2010July 27, 20101 This week, I am in 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's Day 1. Raise your level of absurdity. If something doesn't sound stupid, you won't address it.Come up with a warmup rotation. Same concepts per day of week. Lip flexibility, scales, tone production, articulations, intervals/listeningSame with journals. Music appreciation, rhythmic dictation, music/rhythm copying, free writing, theory exercisesAll bad behavior is fear-based. Fear