TGIF, That Means It’s Almost Monday! Music Education by Joel Wagner - January 22, 2009June 30, 20108 Please don't tell me this picture represents your views! As a teacher, and specifically as a band director, I am not a big fan of Mondays. As a worker, I really love Monday. Why? Great question. Why I don't like Mondays Kids generally don't practice over the weekend. This means that part of Monday is spent recovering and getting the band to sound the way I want it to sound again. Anecdotally, I find that the students are less focused on Mondays than they are on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Those days seem to be the best teaching days of the week. Often, I will plan my schedule with that assumption. More on that later. This week we didn't have school on
10 Things To Do While Joel Is Gone General by Mister Teacher - July 23, 2008July 1, 20100 This is a guest post by Mister Teacher of Learn Me Good. Hello everybody! Since Joel made this forum available, I thought I'd jump on board while the iron is hot (not to mix metaphors or anything). Also, since Joel's vacation and mine (leaving at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow morning for Comic-Con in San Diego) pretty nearly coincide, I figured I should do it sooner than later! For anyone who doesn't know me, I am Doctor Teacher. (Of course, everyone who DOES know me, knows full well that I am not a doctor.) I run a quaint little site called Learn Me Good, which you are all certainly more than welcome to check out, subscribe to, and idolize. Per
Who Wants Some Great Reading? General by Joel Wagner - April 9, 2008July 2, 20103 Then hop on over to Learn Me Good and buy a copy of his book. It is undoubtedly one of the funniest books I've read since becoming a teacher. I read it on Fridays in the fall while I was monitoring our school-wide detention. I keep the kids absolutely silent during detention, and that's hard to do while you're reading about 3rd graders named Plakton, crazy antisocial ex-coworkers, Star Trek jokes, and TAKS tutorials. The book documents the struggles of a first year teacher as he makes the transition from the business world to the education world. If you can't afford the price of the book, then his latest offer to email you a copy of the book might be
Ask Joel Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - February 1, 2008July 2, 20103 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