The Unfairness of Equality General by Joel Wagner - December 31, 2008July 1, 201011 In what has turned out to be some of the best comment-produicing material on this blog, I wrote about Asperger's Syndrome early this month. Amidst the comments, G. Broaddus dropped this little gem: Fairness in the classroom is not always about giving equal tasks; it is sometimes about giving students an equal chance to succeed, and clearly a student with Asperger’s will need a different way to demonstrate learning than his or her “typical” peers. He then later fleshed out that idea on his own blog with the post Fairness and equality in the classroom. Please check out his post to read some of these thoughts. As we take this break and get ready to go back into our classes
Since You’re In The Kitchen… Personal by Joel Wagner - December 22, 2008July 1, 20100 This has very little to do with education, but the concept is brilliant and bears sharing. Foodista is a cookbook with a wiki approach. Some of the cool features include: User-generated and user-edited recipes Easily link to recipes from your blog Click on an ingredient, and find recipes that include that ingredient For instance, here is a link to a recipe for Christmas Pudding. Feel free to explore the site while you have some time off for the Christmas Break!
10 Reasons to Love Rural Schools Inspiration by Waski the Squirrel - July 23, 2008July 1, 20106 This is a guest post by Waski The Squirrel. Joel's invitation to be a guest-writer here was a prime opportunity to advertise the joys of teaching in rural America. I run a small blog on Townhall. Rural America is an ignored sector of education, except in the occasional news article about poverty. I can't really contrast rural America with anywhere else. I've always taught in rural schools: first in Pennsylvania and now in North Dakota. My current school educates about 450 students who come from an area of just over 1000 square miles. When I first moved to North Dakota 10 years ago, I discovered that "rural" is a relative term. The school where I student taught back in
Student Absences & Make-Up Work…What Do You Do? General by Joel Wagner - July 15, 2008July 1, 201011 This article was recently featured in the Carnival of Education, #180. Check it out if you haven't already! I was recently asked about how I handle student absences and make-up work. As a band director, generally an absence simply means they missed out on a rehearsal and we don't have a lot of make-up work to assign. This gives me limited experience dealing with the issue. I am confident that most of the readers of this blog have far more experience in this realm. So it got me thinking, and I want to throw some questions out you you. How do you handle make-up work for students? What steps do you take for students with excessive absences? What
10 Teaching Myths [Infographic] General by Joel Wagner - July 10, 2008July 29, 20160 Last week, I wrote an article called 10 Teaching Myths Busted. Those myths were: Teaching preparation programs produce prepared teachers When I get my own classroom the students will respect me Students come to school primarily to learn I teach an elective class, surely all of my students want to be there If I have problems with a student, [SOME ACTION] will solve everything If I have problems with a student, I can request a schedule change The best teachers treat all students equally Teachers get three months off in the summer Teachers don't get paid well Standardized tests are horrible for education I decided to take a risk and design my first infographic based on this article. Please share your thoughts on this in the
Why Do We Do What It Is That We Do? General by Joel Wagner - June 19, 2008July 1, 20101 My blog has been running on a fairly regular basis now for over a year. I have a wealth of information stored in the archives here. So often, some of the great writing of the past has gone overlooked. One of the most common reasons for this is that the majority of you who are reading this didn’t even subscribe to this blog 5 months ago. Some of the best content I’ve written on the blog was put online last spring or summer. But it so often gets overlooked. Some of it needs to be rehashed from time to time as new readers come along. I have implemented some related posts plugins and some other techniques as well as trying
No Child Left Behind Doomed To Fail? General by Joel Wagner - June 11, 2008June 19, 20168 A reader recently emailed me and pointed me to a recent article on Time.com regarding No Child Left Behind. She wanted my take on the article, so here goes... To begin with, I notice that the article is written by Claudia Wallis, a writer of incredible credentials. This is a great start. The article begins: There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush Administration's signature domestic achievement. I understand this view, but to me it comes across as sounding much like every single faculty meeting I have ever been in that discussed NCLB and its "ridiculous expectations for the students." Every time I hear this, I laugh to myself. I
Parents, Students, And Teachers…Whose Right Is It Anyway? General by Joel Wagner - March 22, 2008July 2, 201010 Recently, I have come across a number of people writing about rights in the education sense. Some seem to pit parents, teachers, and students all against one another. Some seem to think that parents and students gang up against the poor teachers. Still others throw the wicked old administrators into the mix. It seems most of the bloggers I've read seem to have the teacher as the poor, mistreated, valiant hero against whom all the evil forces of society are lashing out. And then there are those who have it out for the Conservative Republican upstate hacks who call themselves "consultants" (see the comments on Matthew's blog). Whatever the case, it seems the discussion of parent-teacher relationships and dynamics bring
Catching Up Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20100 I have had quite a few sites link to me lately and I have not returned the favor. If you have linked to me at any point, please trust that I will be linking to you within the next three months. I'm telling you, this site will go crazy after the school year is over. I may be able to do some more catching up over spring break in a week or so. We'll see what happens. Joseph Pisano has posted the latest Official List Of The ME Bloggers. jd2718 added me to his March link updates. He also said I'm a great idea and very helpful. Awww, thanks! Wow, where has the time gone? I've been featured in a
152nd Carnival of Education Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - January 2, 2008July 2, 201012 Welcome to the January 2, 2008 edition of The Carnival of Education. I have been asked to host this party, so fasten your seat belts, tighten your shoelaces, batten down the hatches, and let the good times roll. How's that for a cliché riddled sentence? Last time I hosted, I got quite a few positive comments. So hopefully you will enjoy this time around as well. If this is your first time visiting my blog, welcome! I'd love it if you stick around, subscribe, and contribute to the conversations! Looking for somewhere to start, check out The Busiest Articles of 2007, then if you're in a real commenting mood, go visit the poor Overlooked Articles of 2007 and The Loneliest
So You Want To Teach 2008 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 31, 2007July 2, 20100 I have been working for about a month now on redesigning So You Want To Teach? I want to make it even more reader friendly. I'm excited about the changes that will be coming this week. In fact, the redesigned site has now made its debut! If you're reading in a RSS reader, come check it out. Let me know what you think. Wow, look at the colors! I have changed the color scheme and the heading graphic a little bit. The goal is to add some more color and make the site more inviting and more reminiscent of actually teaching children. Why is there a question mark next to my comment? Because you haven't set up a Gravatar! Go
Less Stress: Play At Work Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 2, 2007July 5, 20100 We come now to the final chapter of our 25 Tips For Less Stress. This is perhaps my favorite one of all. Without this decision, you cannot have a stress-free life. The key is to choose to have fun at work. No matter what industry you work in, if you love your job, you will be more productive. In education, our products are educated people. The more we love teaching, the more of our children will be successful. That love will translate into their development of greater passion for learning. It's an upward spiral. Conversely, when we hate our job -- or when we just show up to collect the paycheck -- it also shows. The students laboriously come to
Less Stress: Deepen Your Relationships With Coworkers Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 25, 2007July 5, 20100 I touched on this topic before in Deepen Your Relationships With Friends, but I want to get even more involved here. I want to look at specific ways that you can collaborate with coworkers. More experienced teachers These people are the lifeblood of education. We've all had at least a small handful of teachers who we had in school whom everyone KNEW were older than the school building, but was afraid to say it. We all know the type. But they truly love teaching. They can imagine nothing else they would do with their lives! These are the people you need to hook up with. Not only can they be unvaluable sources of free information, but they also generally thrive
Calling Home Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 14, 2007July 5, 20102 I just recently read NYC Educator's article entitled, Startup Tips. Great stuff there. Neither she nor any teacher of education ever advised me on classroom control. The standing platitude was “A good lesson plan is the best way to control a class,” but I no longer believe that. I think a good lesson plan is the best thing to have after you control the class. ... The best trick, and it’s not much of a trick at all, is frequent home contact. It’s true that not all parents will be helpful, but I’ve found most of them to be. When kids know reports of their classroom behavior will reach their homes, they tend to save the acting out for your
Weekend Wrapup 09/10/07 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - September 10, 2007July 5, 20100 Life remains busy, but I still seem to find time to get around to this post each week. If nothing more, at least there's something. I'm taking volunteers to guest blog over here during the busy months of September and October. As we get further into the month, things will do nothing but speed up in the band directing world... Ed U. Cater writes about how much he misses last year's students: A New Kind of Teaching Position. He writes of how much respect her has for us middle school teachers. I'm glad to make him proud. I just remind myself that elective teachers have the opportunity to kick the miscreants out and make them office aides or whatever else