Classroom Out of Control? JD2718 Has Some Great Comments Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - February 1, 2009June 30, 20101 Okay okay. So I'm a band director. Why would anyone listen to me anyway. I'm just an elective teacher. My friend JD2718 emailed me and told me about some stuff that he does in his math class. So even if you ignore my advice about classroom management, maybe some of his advice about keeping students engaged will apply to you. Hop on over and check out Teaching off topic 3. By the way, I have ADD so my kids know that if they ask me a question about my dogs or what I did over the weekend or pretty much anything else, I'll get off topic. But even when I do stay focused, I find ways to bring some off-topic
Do You Run The Risk of Becoming Successful? Inspiration by Joel Wagner - March 21, 2007July 6, 20160 The time from spring break to the end of the school year often seems like a battle between students and teachers to see who is most ready for the summer to begin. One of the teachers I worked with in my first job was fond of saying, "When you look forward to Monday more than Friday, you run the risk of becoming successful." I find this to be true in most anything. Success comes on the heels of both starting well and finishing strongly. When you look forward to Monday more than Friday, you run the risk of becoming successful.Applied to the teaching profession, I have come to the point where I look forward to the beginning of the school day
February 2007 Personal by Joel Wagner - February 26, 2008July 2, 20103 On February 11th, 2007 I wrote the first blog post that is included in the archives of So You Want To Teach? I didn 't actually set up the blog on this domain until June, but I thought that since the blog was now over a year old (at least as far as some of the content), I'd go back and take a look at some of the old stuff. By the way, none of them have any comments at this point... If you have a blog, you can direct some of that traffic your way simply by writing a good, thought-provoking comment 5 Keys To Educating People February 11, 2007 Classroom Management: The Key To Your Success
Find A Mentor (Total Teacher Transformation Day 3) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 5, 2009June 30, 20102 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 when given the
Find A Mirror (Total Teacher Transformation Day 2) Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - May 4, 2009June 30, 20102 This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. Today's lesson is simple, and yet profound. One of the most difficult concepts for me to grasp was one of the most important in my early days of teaching. It is also the most transformational and pivotal of everything that we're going to be doing through this process. Every problem that happens in my classroom is my fault. Or stated more positively I am responsible to ensure good things happen in my class. If we can get over that hurdle, if we can get through that first barrier, we are on the downhill ride to becoming a great teacher. We are responsible for
Find A Moment (Total Teacher Transformation Day 1) Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - May 3, 2009June 30, 201010 This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. Congratulations First of all, I want to congratulate you on taking the first step of this journey toward becoming a great teacher! I can't even begin to describe for you the exciting possibilities that await you as you move through these lessons and begin to come over to the other side. If your experiences are anything like mine as I went through this process five years ago, you will not believe that you used to have classes the way you currently do. If you follow the advice here, I can virtually guarantee you a completely different classroom environment before this month is out. To
Find A Motivator (Total Teacher Transformation Day 5) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 7, 2009June 30, 20102 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
Habit 2: Classroom Habits Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - July 10, 2007July 5, 20103 This is the second in a series of articles entitled 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. Classroom Procedures The procedures that you lay out in the classroom are the most outwardly evident procedures that you have in place. For this reason, they are key elements of your overall classroom management plan. Much of the procedures really depend on the age-group you teach. Since I teach middle school, my procedures are very middle-school oriented. These procedures can be broken up into three categories: Beginning of class Middle of class End of class Beginning of class The tone of the entire class is established before the students walk in the door. We've all heard the old adage, You never get
Habit 3: Relationship Habits Personal by Joel Wagner - July 11, 2007July 5, 20100 This is the third in a series of articles entitled 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. Relationship Procedures In teaching, as in most any businesses -- and life in general -- relationships will either make you successful, or else make you fail. Our relationships spring ultimately from the first habit; our ability to communicate well. But good communication skills alone are not enough to establish powerful relationships. There are more important elements. Here is where again I point out the important role that reading How To Win Friends And Influence People has played in my life. Outstanding book. While on the subject of 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers, I felt it important to once again go over some
Highlighting Some Recent Comments General by Joel Wagner - January 7, 2008July 2, 20101 I have fallen behind on the blog lately, but that is because I am actually trying to move forward some more in my personal life. Sometimes sacrifices are necessary parts of progress. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the great comments that I have received lately. I am interested in hearing more about how some of you run your classrooms effectively. This can include specific teaching techniques, classroom management (which we have gone over quite a bit in recent months), and socially. I also am interested in hearing how you handle administrative issues that seem to pop up from time to time. Out of the middle of nowhere, Jane wrote a lengthy and thoughtful comment
How Do I Keep My Students Learning? Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - June 10, 2007May 29, 20162 This article is part 4 of the series Questions That Will Save Your Career. Please read the other articles in the series. How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? How Do I Keep My Students Engaged? How Do I Keep My Students Interested? How Do I Keep My Students Learning? How Do I Keep My Students Away From Me? How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy? How Do I Keep My Sanity? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Engaged? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Interested? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Learning? 10 Years of
How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - June 7, 2007August 4, 201614 This article is part 1 of the series Questions That Will Save Your Career. Before you can focus on engaging your students, or making sure they learn or whatever, you must learn how to keep your students quiet. The rest of the articles in the series are: How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? How Do I Keep My Students Engaged? How Do I Keep My Students Interested? How Do I Keep My Students Learning? How Do I Keep My Students Away From Me? How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy? How Do I Keep My Sanity? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? 10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Engaged? 10 Years
How Do We Show Our Students That We Love Them? Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - November 8, 2009May 30, 20160 When I was struggling to find hope early in my career as a teacher, I came across a few pieces of advice given by King Solomon from the Proverbs: He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly. — Proverbs 13:24 This one jumped out at me as I realized I overlooked way too much misbehavior. I came to understand that by continually letting the students misbehave because I wanted them to like me was actually counter-productive and instead it made them respect me less. More than that, it showed me that whereas I thought I was being loving, I was actually being hateful. That helped me a whole lot as it set me on a
How To Actually Enjoy Teaching A Class You Don’t Want To Teach General by Joel Wagner - June 23, 2016June 23, 20160 You want me to teach what? Imagine my surprise the first day of my job one year when I found out that I was teaching Music History and that there was no curriculum for the class, no budget for it, and no textbook. The class was used to fulfill the fine arts credit that student needed to graduate, so I could reasonably expect that less than 25% of the students had any kind of working knowledge of music. In fact, most of them would inevitably want to listen to exclusively hip hop music and complain about anything that was produced more than 5 years earlier. Other teachers who had taught the class explained to me that they just show movies, or spend a semester teaching music theory and then a
If You Really Must Have Classroom Rules…Simplicity Is Key Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 26, 2008July 28, 201612 I am a huge fan of simplicity. For that matter, I love the idea of having no classroom rules. However, I know some people don't operate that way. Great teachers can be found in both camps. But whether or not we feel it necessary to tie our students down with rules, the greatest commonality between all great teachers is that they have clear, concise, and comprehensive expectations for their students and they communicate them in such a way that every student is aware of what is right and wrong. My school has a list of something like 12 school-wide classroom rules. That is way overboard for me, but I dutifully posted them on the wall in the classroom as I've been told