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Stuff About Joel

1082275_grunge_stuffMatthew tagged me. Blame it all on him!

With round 3 of TAKS testing coming up next week, we all could use a little break.

The rules:

  1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
  2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
  3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
  4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

Got it.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
1998. Wow, I don’t really know! Ha. I was finishing up my sophomore year of college.

I was actually finishing the second semester following a major traumatic car accident. For the music people out there, I failed my fourth semester jury as a direct result of a collapsed right lung. It made playing my horn difficult. That made practicing miserable. As a result, I didn’t practice.

I was playing in orchestra, wind ensemble, horn choir.

I pledged Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia in the spring of ’98.

I didn’t start teaching private lessons until the fall of ’98, so I wasn’t really spending any time in schools. Just went to school and went home.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

  1. Practice my trumpet, specifically looking to increase my range and endurance…I am so out of shape
  2. Pass out solos
  3. Pick up my shirt from the dry cleaner
  4. Memorize mariachi music (with the help of two of my best trumpet beginners from three years ago) for my first public mariachi performance tomorrow, followed by a wedding on Saturday
  5. Teach

3) Snacks I enjoy:

Granola bars, fruit, carrots

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

  1. Be completely out of debt forever
  2. Put $10,000,000 in a money market and in each of four categories of mutual funds (growth, growth and income, aggressive growth, international)
  3. Live off of the interest in the money market, leave the mutual funds alone and use them to completely change my family tree
  4. Give $10,000,000 a month to Gospel For Asia, Voice of the Martyrs, and The Dalit Freedom Network

5) Three of my bad habits:

  1. Procrastination
  2. Selfishness
  3. Not praying more

6) 5 places I have lived:

  1. Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex
  2. Texas/Mexico Border
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No more specifics, but that’s it.

7) 5 jobs I have had:

  1. Best Buy Customer Service Representative (cashier)
  2. Temp Agency Data Entry
  3. Private Lesson Instructor
  4. Band Director
  5. Freelance musician

8) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:

  1. Jonathan. Even though he lists me as a math teacher on his blogroll, he’s still cool. I must admit, there is something deep in my soul that would love to spend a year teaching math. The problem is that I don’t want the pay cut and I don’t want to deal with kids who don’t choose to be in my class. Plus, I dread the idea of grading tests or homework and inputting grades.
  2. Waski_the_Squirrel. I am too lazy to remember to visit any website each day. I wish he had an RSS feed on his blog so I could add him to my Google Reader list and contribute more. One or these days I’ll figure it out and tell him how! [READ HIS RESPONSE]
  3. Kelvin. This college freshman has been commenting quite a bit on my blog lately. His passion for teaching is contagious. I’m interested to watch his growth and development as he approaches student teaching and begins his first real job somewhere down the road. [READ HIS RESPONSE]
  4. Benjamin Baxter. Student teacher. I’m looking forward to his entering the teaching field and seeing how it all works out. It’s really exciting to me to consider that people will have access to the blogging knowledge base before entering the classrooms. I look forward to reading about his experiences.
  5. Edwonk. This guy has been blogging for a long time. Awesome stuff. He is the inspiration behind one of the most popular carnivals on the web.
  6. Lorelle. She’s an incredibly active force behind blogging, edublogging, and WordPress, three things I love! And she seems real enough and cool enough to accept this tag and work it into her schedule. If you have a blog, you need to subscribe to her blog. If you only subscribe to one blog, it should be hers.

If you haven’t checked out the SYWTT Forums, go introduce yourself there.

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.

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Joel Wagner
Joel Wagner (<strong><a href="http://www.twitter.com/sywtt">@sywtt</a></strong>) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. <strong><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/">So You Want To Teach?</a></strong> is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.
http://www.SoYouWantToTeach.com

12 thoughts on “Stuff About Joel

  1. Waski: Thanks for the response! This summer will be a great time for me to review some blogging basics on here. Also, watch next month as the Blogging Revolution Project begins and I’ll have some missions for you that should expand your knowledge! :)

  2. Uh oh. I’ve been tagged! LOL Let’s see what I can muster up along the lines of creativity and fun. Thanks for tagging me by the way!

  3. I’ve linked to your response – I wish some of the larger sites posted a meme now and again. I like getting to know about some of the non-ed interests of our bloggers.

    Your trumpeting news reminded me of a tiny fact I’ll likely pull out for the next meme. I played the ophicleide for a week or so in an 1840s re-enactment band. I was playing the baritone sax at the time, so the transition wasn’t too difficult… but the number of people I’ve met who have even heard an ophicleide in action makes for a short list!

  4. Thanks Matthew. I can’t honestly say that I have ever seen an ophicleide in person, but I am familiar with at least the concept of it.

    Yes, it would be nice if some of the larger blogs did memes. I put a couple on my list just on the off chance they will… :)

  5. I know what you guys mean. I posted my answered and emailed those who I tagged. Hopefully they got the emails and will do the same. That was something different and it helped with the creation of yesterday’s post.

  6. Dear Joel,

    I teach grades 5-12 Band and I had my 5th grade, 6th grade, and junior high band concerts just this evening. The kids all played wonderfully and I received several positive comments from many parents. The students all appeared to have a terrific time, too. Since I’ve taken over this program (4 years ago) there has been a steady trend of improvements from one year to the next and many of the older members of our audience take the time to relay to me how the bands have never sounded better in 20 years. I receive a lot of support from parents and administrators. The students I teach for the most part are wonderful people to work with and I have very few, if any, real discipline problems throughout my bands. I would say that I am quite good at what I do, and I am actively involved in other musical activities outside of school. I’m a published composer and perform in various community ensembles.

    Even with so many extremely positive aspects about my job, I still find myself generally unsatisfied with teaching and often contemplate finding work in some other profession. But then I found this blog tonight and I wanted to take a minute just to thank you and all of the contributors on here for the supporting words and advice. The articles and responses are exactly what I needed tonight.

    I hope I can truly find a way to make my dissatisfaction with teaching go away. I hate feeling this way and I hope I can dig myself out of this funk.

    Thank you. I greatly appreciate this blog site!

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