
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…
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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….
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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…
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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
…
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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…
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