So this week that just passed was my first week of the new school year. It was pretty much amazing. I have a new completely positive approach. I am a brand new Joel this year. There are two things that are paramount in my mind as I stand in front of the class every day. I want the band to have:

1. A culture of encouragement
2. An expectation of excellence

If I can model those two things, I am convinced that I can ensure the rest of the students follow suit. We don’t criticize other students, we encourage them. We don’t laugh at mistakes, we learn from them. We don’t point out problems, we provide possible solutions. As I’ve…

Don’t quit teaching. It could be that every single struggle you’ve ever faced as a teacher has been leading you to an amazing breakthrough that will happen this year. Make it happen!

Fear
I’m…

Sorry, no April Fools Day jokes from me this year. But I am actually posting a little bit. Last night, I took my band to the UIL Concert and Sight-Reading contest and we got a Sweepstakes trophy. This means that at least two of the three judges for our concert program and two of the three judges for our sight-reading agreed that our band played superior and earned a first division. I’m so proud of them! Contact me via email and ask me for the link to the recordings.

I have done a ton of thinking about this blog lately and I am determined that I will once again enable comments soon. I have the old ones, but I am…

This summer has been the best summer of my teaching career so far. Unfortunately for you, I haven’t blogged about it a whole lot. As I get back into the routine of things a little bit more, I will have some more time and energy to begin writing about some of the things that I have experienced and why it is that this summer has been so good.

It all started back at the end of May when I made the decision to miss school on Memorial Day so I could go spend the weekend with my family. My sister was in town and my cousin had a party celebrating his graduation from Med School as a neurosurgeon. I hadn’t…

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…

This morning, I asked my Twitter and blogging friends the simple question: Why do you teach?

While most of the responses came in via Twitter (limited to 140 characters), some also came in through the comments. What I found in my nonscientific cross sampling of technolgically literate teachers was interesting.

If you missed out on your chance this morning, feel free to add your own comments below! Without any further formalities, here were the responses:

@flourishingkids

I teach because I love cultivating the joy and efficacy of learning

@kaferico

I teach because is my vocation and passion. There is never a dull day. My goal is to make every day an A-HA! moment for my students.

@flotoonie

To use tech…

On the one hand, I love my job. I absolutely love the kids I work with and am on pretty good terms with the rest of the band staff.

On the other hand, my life is pretty boring. I have never been a crazy partier or anything (I don’t drink alcohol or much caffeine for that matter). I don’t go out to clubs and can’t stand the bar environment. But in a relatively small town (less than 50,000 people) that is over an hour from the next closest reasonably sized town, life can get to feeling pretty isolated.

A question I have for those of you out there who have been in this type of situation: When did you feel…

A little bit of levity here, in light of my current Student Teaching Project. (By the way, if you are student teaching, join us by writing a blog and letting me know about it!)

Brought to you by TeacherPortal.com.

A comment was left recently that said,

Joel, I really enjoy your blog. You have written some amazing articles that I have printed and put in my first year file. I am currently student teaching right now. I appreciate your honesty about how scary and hard it can be sometimes, but also the greatness in the experience. I am having the time of my life, and I hope the enthusiasm I have stays with me. Your blog is helping, so thank you! If you could give one single piece of advice to a beginning teacher, what would it be? Just curious!

That challenged me to see if I could come up with something I hadn’t written before that was better…

Lisa writes:

I googled “bitter about teaching” and came up with your blog.  I was recently let go from a school I busted my a$$ in for a whole year (my first year) – constant criticism, cattiness, and pointing out and embellishing the negative things I had done while minimizing the positive (all the while they were telling me to stay positive!).

She concludes her email:

I just wanted to let you know that your blog picked me up a little bit.  I still have a lot of healing to do, but I’m glad that I’m not the only person that this has happened to.

What an awesome thing! In case you missed the story, here are a few articles…

If you haven’t been keeping up with the comments on here, shame on you. Fortunately, I have been. Let me fill you in. You see, I have installed a new plugin that allows people to reply to comments that others make. The reply will include a link directly to the comment that was left. It’s working out pretty well for me.

I have noticed that as I reply to some of the comments, many of you have subscribed to receive other comments. And so my replies go to your inbox. And then sometimes people reply back. It’s working out well.

Recently, Stephanie posted a comment on my article No Child Left Behind: Doomed To Fail? In her comment, she suggested…

As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day four of our focus on writing. Today’s article will focus on crafting your own personal style, develop your writing voice.

Newer bloggers may have a struggle with figuring out exactly what approach they want to take with their blog. Think of your writing voice as your brand name. Lea Schizas has written some on this topic at Writing with Passion and Developing Your Voice and Brand

Some common questions may include:

• How do I want to attack each post?
• What kind of a tone should I assume?
• What kind of audience should I expect?

These are all normal. Let’s look at these three questions a little…

As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day three of our focus on writing. Today will look at one of the best ways to keep readers coming back each day. It also happens to be one of the best ways to bring in traffic much further down the road. We’ll focus on the art of the series.

Just as we looked at how writing lists can be very popular on Monday, another great way to encourage traffic to return is to write lists, but extend them over a period of a few days or even a few weeks. Essentially writing lists of articles, or a series. Some of the pivotal points in this blog’s history have revolved…

I will begin setting up and writing in a Music Education blog soon. The idea was to include Music Education content on this blog, but I think that might alienate a handful of the readers and that is the last thing I want to do. So when it gets up and running, I will link to there from here and link from here to there. It’s exciting! When that happens, the posting frequency over here may dip a little bit, but I will continue to add great content regularly.

I have noticed a change in my posting habits lately as well. It seems that I have begun to find myself on a mission to create more edubloggers. I love what…

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…

In the Christmas break, I am looking back at this blog’s growth and development. I began writing a little bit for the blog in February, but didn’t officially launch it for real until June. Since that time, growth has been pretty consistent. I now seem to regularly get a small number of comments for every article I write, with some eliciting more than others. As I look through the blog’s archive, it strikes me that there are some articles that have either been buried deep in the archives, or for whatever reason, have gone unnoticed by my readers.

So I am giving all of those articles a chance to redeem themselves, come up to the light of day. Here is…

This is a guest post by Jane Little of My Many Colored Crayons. Jane teaches third grade in Los Angeles, CA.

I teach in a school that has more than it’s share of challenges. Low morale is just one of them. About a year ago I started blogging with this post. It was a raw and honest account of a low point in my teaching career. The problems some of my students faced were heartbreaking to say the least.I had to chuckle when Joel said, “As I read your stuff, I just imagine you being someone who wakes up each morning with a smile on your face. I’d like to see how that plays out in reality a little bit…

Well, this is one of my weakest areas. I have my work environment very organized and neat, but my home is not. Part of my problem is that I know what to do and how to do it, I just don’t seem to find the energy after working 11-16 hour days to come home and do it. And in the marching season, many of my weekends are taken up traveling out of town to football games and/or marching competitions.

During the rest of the school year, I am generally pretty good about it, but still not perfect.

Why is a clean home important?
Again, the same as a clean desk provides peace of mind, so does a clean home….

I have written about having a clear desk before in passing, but here is a little bit about why to do it as well as how to do it. This is a real picture of my half of the office at work.

Imagine coming to work each morning and having a nice, calm, clear workspace. Do you think it would help jump start your work day? I know for me, I am able to get to work, sit down in my (clearly uncomfortable) chair, and relax.

We’ve all read the sign atop a messy desk: “A Clean Desk Is The Sign of a Diseased Mind.“ That is an excuse given by people who don’t want to bother with coming up…

No weekend wrapup last week. No weekend wrapup this week either. I’m sorry. I am being overwhelmed by work commitments as well as personal commitments. On a personal note, I preached in church last Wednesday and will preach again this Wednesday. That takes a lot of focus and study time, which really seems to make this blog suffer a bit. In addition, there are just a whole lot of things on my plate right now in the personal life. I’m doing fine, but I just need to take a little bit of time off from posting on here. Don’t worry, much more good stuff will be coming back again in November and beyond. This is definitely turning out to be…