Archive for the ‘Reader Appreciation’ Category
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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 Things I …
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I found this article that I wrote back in November but never got around to posting on the blog.
Do I really want to teach?
In my first two years of teaching, not a week went by when I didn’t ask myself that very question. Many people face it every day. Without question, the most popular search terms that brings visitors to my blog are “quit teaching” and “do I want to teach?” I wonder how many Google searches are done each day on the subject. I wonder how many young teachers decide each day that this will be their last semester to teach. It’s tragic, really.
At the same time, the greater tragedy is the …
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Newby writes:
I have noticed lately in a couple of your posts you mentioned how terrible your first couple of years of teaching were. As a new reader, I have gone back into your archived information to learn more about this blog but have not come across why you had such a hard time. What made your first years so difficult? As a teacher with more years under your belt, do you think those experiences helped make you a better teacher or would you just as well forget about them altogether?
What made my first years so difficult?
I think there were a few factors that made my first year difficult.
- I didn’t know how to control the class
I
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Lately, I have noticed a larger number of prospective and newer teachers leaving comments to my various articles. This has helped inspire me to offer what advice I can in a (hopefully) weekly question and answer forum. For lack of creativity, we’ll call it “Ask Joel” and begin next week. Any question is fair game, whether it’s about about teaching, classroom management, band directing, blogging, or whatever else! Email me and let me know your questions. I will choose from the questions I receive and post answers to them on Fridays.
Why do this?
Well, first of all, it makes me think more in-depth about certain topics. After my terrible first couple of years of teaching, I have blocked some …
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As we come to the conclusion of Reader Appreciation Month, I want to summarize some of the things that we have learned. Today, I’ll focus on some of the reasons my readers have shared with me about why they love their jobs. Here are 50 reasons to love your job as a teacher.
50 reasons to love your job as a teacher
- Sharing my experiences
- Helping inexperienced teachers solve problems
- The ability to help children achieve their best
- Inspiring them not only academically but personally
- Getting up on my stage and performing for them, too
- The thrill of a good and well thought out lesson is incomparable
- The kids energies; their inquisitiveness makes me want to go and teach
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As we come to the conclusion of Reader Appreciation Month, I want to summarize some of the things that we have learned. Today, I’ll focus on some of the character traits of people who were indicated by my readers as their favorite teachers. Some of the character traits were mentioned by multiple people. We’ll call these the Top 5 (Plus 14) Character Traits Of Superior Teachers. If you want to be a great teacher, these are the things you should begin to develop first.
Top 5 Character Traits of Great Teachers
- Inspired me and never let me settle for anything less than my best (10)
- Compassionate, caring, made me feel important and welcomed, made a personal connection with me
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As we come to the conclusion of Reader Appreciation Month, I want to summarize some of the things that we have learned. Today, I’ll focus on the incredible wealth of knowledge that we have learned about classroom management.
I found that when I put all of the tips together, I had over 70 suggestions. I combined a few of them and broke them down into categories. The tips all fell into four categories: Personal, Student and Parent Relationships, Organization and Teaching, and Behavior and Rules. After consolidating, I came up with 50 classroom management tips I have learned this month.
Personal tips for effective classroom management
- Find out who you are as a person; find your strengths, weaknesses, and how
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With all of the great responses I have read with the Reader Appreciation Month, I decided to go ahead and fill out the survey as well.
Name: Joel
Location: The border of Texas and Mexico
Occupation: Middle School Band Director
Blog: So You Want To Teach?
Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
Inspiring children. Spreading my passion for music, life, and learning. Watching the students grow year after year. Recruiting kids into my program. Being creative with the music. Transforming students from knowing nothing about how to play an instrument to being able to perform complicated (for them) music by the end of the year. Demonstrating the value of long-range planning to achieve crazy cool results. …
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November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today’s featured reader is Pamela.
Name: Pamela
Location: Michigan
Occupation: Elementary Teacher, Reading Specialist
Blog: Blog may be coming soon, but none yet ;-)
Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
Some of my favorite things about teaching: I enjoy sharing my love of learning and my passion for certain topics. It goes beyond just teaching the material…it’s about making a personal connection with the students. Along those same lines, I love sharing the excitement of a good book. When I introduce it and starting talking about it with excitement, the students can’t wait for me to start reading. When it’s time to stop reading and …
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November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today’s featured reader is Jeremy Aldrich.
Name: Jeremy Aldrich
Location: Harrisonburg, Virginia
Occupation: Middle school (6-8) electives – French, Foreign Language Exploratory, and Global Citizenship
Blog: Global Citizenship in a Virtual World
Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
I love the push to keep learning, to keep discovering new questions and to help students discover their own questions.
Tell me some things you loved about your favorite teacher(s)
My favorite teacher, Mr. Newton, helped me feel like I was a good writer. He inspired me to read and to think and to share. He wasn’t fake or shallow with his comments to students.
List some …
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November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today’s featured reader is Clix.
Name: Clix
Location: Georgia
Occupation: Freshman English; Journalism
Blog: Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable
Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
I seem to be good at it. I get to explore stories and try new ideas and encourage others to do the same. It’s never dull. I love messing with their heads. I love how wee the freshmen are and watching them grow into young ladies and gentlemen (in theory). I love the power of CONTROLLING LIVES – well, at least for an hour or so a day! I love listening to their ideas and seeing the way their minds …
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