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…

Emails like this are the reason this site exists.

I am an 11-year high school English teaching veteran in the Los Angeles area. Most of my teaching was done in the trenches of suburban, low-SES “nay-bah-HOODS” and the fringes of, um, gangsta lands. (I teach English … go figure.) I’ve had my share of awesome kids, classes and experiences, and I’ve had my share of kids who practice “learned helplessness” and come to school looking like Snoop Droopy Drawers. Overall, I love my subject matter, and love working with high school age kids, especially helping them to “read, write and think your world” (one of my class mottoes).

I wanted to thank you for your no-nonsense, honest site that both…

I ran 1 mile last night and it took me 18:45. I saw a post on the Couch To 5K’s Facebook profile the other day that questioned whether someone made a typo when they said they ran a mile in 33 minutes.

They couldn’t imagine someone only running one mile in 33 minutes. My contribution to that discussion was pretty good, so I posted it on the Can Wii Do It? blog this evening.

Enjoy The Art of Slow Slow Slow Running…

Are you at the bottom of a pit? Maybe you’re in a place you never thought you would be. Or you never thought you’d be there again. I can’t count the number of times I’ve fallen into a bad habit in teaching. I allow myself to get bogged down with paperwork instead of taking care of it right away. Students ask me questions at the beginning of class and I forget the six magic words that liberate me: “I’m not answering questions right now.”

Oh, you’ve done it too…

Positive changes come and go like the wind most of the time. How do we stick it out and truly persevere? If you know the answer to this question, write a…

Look around you. How many unrealized plans do you see? How much unfinished business do you have sitting on your desk at work waiting for you in the morning? What about ungraded papers, unread emails, un-thrown-away junk mail?

Maybe paperwork isn’t your problem. Maybe it’s a half-finished basement, a bathroom renovation gone sour, a fence in the back yard that needs to be adjusted. Or you have bill collectors hounding you. Or you aren’t contributing enough (or anything) to your retirement plan. Or you are in debt out your eyeballs. Or you’re still lugging around that extra 5 pounds that you’ve been meaning to lose (or the 75 pounds that has grown as you’ve been ignoring it for the last…

Since I have decided this new year to slowly end my hatred of running that I have harbored for the past decade or so, I’m reading more about it. I am inspired to find there are a handful of pretty good health and fitness blogs that my school hasn’t blocked on the network yet too! My conference period can now be spent walking, reading, or actually doing productive things for my band!

Today I have been catching up on some of the Twitter links I’ve seen and came across 13 Most Inspirational YouTube Videos of All-Time that Angela Maiers had sent out a few days back. I was really impressed by this video.

I was so impressed that I…

So I’m curious…how is your plan going so far? We are one week into 2010 now. Did you come up with a New Year’s Resolution this year? How has it fared in the first seven days of the year? Does it have hope for lasting much longer? I’d love to hear your goals and their progress. Also, if you’ve done something truly remarkable in the past, share that in the comments. Or tweet about it. Success stories have this knack for motivating other people. And sometimes we just need a little motivation. So go for it, brag about your accomplishments. Or your vision.

In the past I’ve come up with New Year’s Resolutions, and more recently Visions for the Year. They sort of helped to guide the first four to six weeks of the year, but rarely have lasted much beyond that. This year is different. This year I’m for real. I’ve decided to create a BHAG – a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal – for myself. I am making active steps in moving forward on the goal, and I am setting myself up to either win big or fail big. It will not be a quiet ending, whichever way things pan out.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing I’ll do is go over the basics of goal-setting, and then give…

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 to you or your readers.

So I jumped on over to check it out. What an inspiration it was, too! Her blog Teacher, I Don’t Get It has been up for a little less than a year. I was indeed impressed by her latest…

This is a guest post by Tom Anselm. His book, You’re Never Too Old For Space Camp is available in Ebook or Paperback formats from Booklocker.com.

“My kids go to a good school”
What parent doesn’t want to be able to say this about the bricks and mortar location where they entrust their offspring for 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, again and again.

And for that matter, what teacher worth his or her salt doesn’t want to be able to say with some conviction, “Yeah, I work in a good school.”

This word “good” when used in the context of quality holds so much meaning. It brings us to the question of this article. “What…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

As discussed last time, part of gaining respect from students comes from being respectful. The second element of earning the respect of your students (and their parents), comes from being respectable. No amount of courtesy to your students can overcome a disrespectable personality!

So what are some character traits we should be modeling?
Competence - Knowing your content area is vital. If you are a band director, you need to have some sort of clue how to play an instrument. If you are an English teacher, you ought to be reading regularly. If you are a history teacher, you should have some sort of historical…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

I hope that this series so far has been useful for some of you. I’m not getting an overwhelming amount of feedback specifically on the series, but I guess I really can’t complain about over 40 (non-spam) comments in the last week, even if they were not entirely devoted to the Total Teacher Transformation series.

I find that it’s always nice to get feedback when you are trying to do something important. In thinking about this, I am actually reminded of the early days of my Total Teacher Transformation back 5 years ago. I didn’t have anyone there saying, “You’re doing a great job”…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

Yesterday we looked at making phone calls and using parent pressure as a motivator for classroom management. Today, we’re going to go with a slightly more high-brow alternative, and one that tends to be more effective over the long run.

Hopefully by now, you have begun to exercise a little more control in your classroom. I was telling a friend the other day that when I teach, it’s sort of like I’m acting. I assume the roll of Benevolent Dictator of the classroom. I mentally tell myself that I am in control of the classroom, and I make sure that the students know that…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

Let’s play a game
I want you to think about your classes right now. Think about the four biggest trouble-makers on your roll sheet. Now imagine, what it would be like if they all got sent to another school. You wake up tomorrow and those four kids are gone. What a great day!

But you know what?
With them gone, four more kids will step up and strart ruining your life. There is no end to the number of children who will misbehave if given the chance! Even if you only have one kid, they will still act up…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

As I suspected when I started this blog, there are a lot of teachers who don’t really have a strong grasp on how to be a great teacher. The number of emails and comments that I have gotten this year are a clear indication of that. When I take into account that only a small percentage of those who visit my site contact me in any way, I can only believe that the problem is far greater than we can imagine.

Is this you? Well, there is hope! Beginning tomorrow, I’m going to start a crash course series on getting control of…

This morning, I asked my Twitter and blogging friends the simple question: Why do you teach?

While most of the responses came in via Twitter (limited to 140 characters), some also came in through the comments. What I found in my nonscientific cross sampling of technolgically literate teachers was interesting.

If you missed out on your chance this morning, feel free to add your own comments below! Without any further formalities, here were the responses:

@flourishingkids

I teach because I love cultivating the joy and efficacy of learning

@kaferico

I teach because is my vocation and passion. There is never a dull day. My goal is to make every day an A-HA! moment for my students.

@flotoonie

To use tech…

New readers are coming to this blog all the time. As a new reader, the comments below will show you some of the many ways that reading this blog can be beneficial for you!

I have received a large number of comments and emails from people who tell me that they have been inspired to begin blogging as a result of this here blog. I must admit, I am very interested in getting other people to begin seeing the benefit of blogging through their experiences. I also am quite focused on personal growth in many areas of my life.

With that in mind, I know that I say some things very bluntly and don’t pull too many punches. Sometimes the…

A reader wrote in with the following story. I don’t even know how to begin to respond to it, but I’ll add some thoughts at the end. Hopefully this reader’s experience will serve some of you somehow in the future.

When I interviewed at my school, it appeared to be everything I wanted in a job. I interviewed for one prep. I addressed my classroom procedures, consequences I employed, rewards I employed, my teaching style, asked about administrative involvement… and basically heard everything I wanted to hear. I fortunately came to that school with very kind references and evaluations.

What I found on my first day were five preps across three grade levels. When I questioned it, I was told…

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….

(Guest post by author/educator Kelly Curtis)

Sometimes when I speak to fellow educators about youth empowerment, the idea of following student leadership on a project is seen as a complication in an already burdened schedule. In certain situations, this may be true — and it’s a valid concern.

But it doesn’t have to be the case. Obviously it depends on the project, and it may not work with much of the standard curriculum. But in my experience – as well as that of educators I interviewed in the course of writing my book — sometimes the process of empowering young people can make special projects more efficient, more meaningful, and less work for the educator.

As a school…