This year I am in the position to be able to work relatively closely with two first-year teachers and a second-year teacher. I also am working full time with a third-year teacher. One of my primary objectives this year is to be able to talk through some of their challenges and hopefully offer some suggestions for how they can better grow as teachers through the process. I see them making a lot of the mistakes that I used to make. In my discussions with some of the more experienced folks around me, I hear them refer to these as rookie mistakes.

We all make mistakes in our jobs on a daily basis. Some mistakes that we make are more normal than…

This year has been one of learning for me. Physical activity has been a struggle for me for years, and so in January when I decided I would set out to run a 5K this spring, it was a shock to pretty much everyone who knows me.

The thing that has most intrigued me has been how much I have learned about life just from this one decision. I intend to spend the summer writing about these topics quite a bit. I also plan to dig into some of the other series that I began on the blog and for whatever reason never completed. Needless to say, I have a good bit of reading and writing that I will be…

Are you at the bottom of a pit? Maybe you’re in a place you never thought you would be. Or you never thought you’d be there again. I can’t count the number of times I’ve fallen into a bad habit in teaching. I allow myself to get bogged down with paperwork instead of taking care of it right away. Students ask me questions at the beginning of class and I forget the six magic words that liberate me: “I’m not answering questions right now.”

Oh, you’ve done it too…

Positive changes come and go like the wind most of the time. How do we stick it out and truly persevere? If you know the answer to this question, write a…

Look around you. How many unrealized plans do you see? How much unfinished business do you have sitting on your desk at work waiting for you in the morning? What about ungraded papers, unread emails, un-thrown-away junk mail?

Maybe paperwork isn’t your problem. Maybe it’s a half-finished basement, a bathroom renovation gone sour, a fence in the back yard that needs to be adjusted. Or you have bill collectors hounding you. Or you aren’t contributing enough (or anything) to your retirement plan. Or you are in debt out your eyeballs. Or you’re still lugging around that extra 5 pounds that you’ve been meaning to lose (or the 75 pounds that has grown as you’ve been ignoring it for the last…

Since I have decided this new year to slowly end my hatred of running that I have harbored for the past decade or so, I’m reading more about it. I am inspired to find there are a handful of pretty good health and fitness blogs that my school hasn’t blocked on the network yet too! My conference period can now be spent walking, reading, or actually doing productive things for my band!

Today I have been catching up on some of the Twitter links I’ve seen and came across 13 Most Inspirational YouTube Videos of All-Time that Angela Maiers had sent out a few days back. I was really impressed by this video.

I was so impressed that I…

In the past I’ve come up with New Year’s Resolutions, and more recently Visions for the Year. They sort of helped to guide the first four to six weeks of the year, but rarely have lasted much beyond that. This year is different. This year I’m for real. I’ve decided to create a BHAG – a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal – for myself. I am making active steps in moving forward on the goal, and I am setting myself up to either win big or fail big. It will not be a quiet ending, whichever way things pan out.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first thing I’ll do is go over the basics of goal-setting, and then give…

Carol Richtsmeier made me do it. She has pretty much shamed me (guilted me perhaps?) into blogging through my weight loss this year with her. I’m doing it because I want to run a 5K. She’s doing it because she’s tired of dragging along the extra baggage. Well, me too. She’s done all of the legwork and I’ll do some design work when I get a chance, but she’s set up a blog call Can Wii Do It? to track our progress. I suggested there might be others who would be interested in blogging through their journey (either with a Wii or without). If you are, she would probably be the person to contact since she’s doing most of the…

The picture speaks for itself. It’s the new year, it’s time for a change. My little Wii guy isn’t going to look like this much longer. He’s going to get closer to a healthy weight. Wii Fit tells me that a healthy weight for me would be around 140 pounds. That’s more than 100 pounds away. But a weight of 10 pounds less than now is a healthier weight than whatever he currently weighs.

Weight loss
I have a friend who has lost over 20 pounds in about two months. I asked him about it, and he tells me he is severely limiting how much he eats and exercising a lot. But over the holidays, he continued exercising…

The new year always brings with it a certain air of excitement and a new set of challenges. 2010 is no exception. With the first major chunk of the 2009-2010 school year out of the way, I’m looking back on where it has taken me and there are, quite honestly, a great number of changes that I see as being pressing needs in my life. Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be looking more in-depth into some of these changes and really digging into where I see things headed.

Entering this year, I am 31 years old. While this isn’t old by any contemporary standards, I also look at some of the notable people throughout history and…

I got an email from a reader this morning and she sent told me that I might appreciate her latest blog post. She writes:

I read your blog.  I also write my own blog.  I started my blog when I wanted to quit.  I spent about a year thinking about that.  I realize now that I don’t want to quit anymore.  I thought maybe my latest blog about why I don’t want to quit anymore would be of interest to you or your readers.

So I jumped on over to check it out. What an inspiration it was, too! Her blog Teacher, I Don’t Get It has been up for a little less than a year. I was indeed impressed by her latest…

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how my friend Junior had posted on his blog calling for people to write about what kind of a legacy we wanted to leave. I have been thinking a whole lot over the past few months about my progression as a teacher, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to really flesh out some about what kinds of things I have been through.

I’ve sort of broken things down by year and I would be interested to know how many other teachers could say their progress as a teacher has been similar. Clearly I have not yet arrived, but I have learned a handful of things along the way, and it’s been…

This is a guest post by Tom Anselm. His book, You’re Never Too Old For Space Camp is available in Ebook or Paperback formats from Booklocker.com.

“My kids go to a good school”
What parent doesn’t want to be able to say this about the bricks and mortar location where they entrust their offspring for 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, again and again.

And for that matter, what teacher worth his or her salt doesn’t want to be able to say with some conviction, “Yeah, I work in a good school.”

This word “good” when used in the context of quality holds so much meaning. It brings us to the question of this article. “What…

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

I hope that this series so far has been useful for some of you. I’m not getting an overwhelming amount of feedback specifically on the series, but I guess I really can’t complain about over 40 (non-spam) comments in the last week, even if they were not entirely devoted to the Total Teacher Transformation series.

I find that it’s always nice to get feedback when you are trying to do something important. In thinking about this, I am actually reminded of the early days of my Total Teacher Transformation back 5 years ago. I didn’t have anyone there saying, “You’re doing a great job”…

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…

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 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…

This is an ongoing series. Bookmark this page as a way of navigating your way around the series. By the way, this was my 400th post on the blog.

1. Day 1: Find A Moment
2. Day 2: Find A Mirror
3. Day 3: Find A Mentor
4. Day 4: Find A Mother
5. Day 5: Find A Motivation
6. Day 6: Find A Mentor (Again)
7. Day 7: Week 1 Summary
8. Day 8: Be Prepared
9. Day 9: Be Consistent
10. Day 10: Be Fair
11. Day 11: Be Respectful
12. Day 12: Be Respectable

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents.

As I suspected when I started this blog, there are a lot of teachers who don’t really have a strong grasp on how to be a great teacher. The number of emails and comments that I have gotten this year are a clear indication of that. When I take into account that only a small percentage of those who visit my site contact me in any way, I can only believe that the problem is far greater than we can imagine.

Is this you? Well, there is hope! Beginning tomorrow, I’m going to start a crash course series on getting control of…

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…

I got a comment on one of my articles about quitting teaching last night that touched my heart. I will respond to her more in depth later on today, but I don’t have time right now to get back except for briefly. I thought I would use the opportunity to tap the resources of the SYWTT community and throw the question out to the readers for some feedback.

She writes in part:

I think it is too late for me. In my 2nd year of teaching 5th grade – first year barely made it and this year is worse. I definitely have some helth issues that have just sucked away my creativity this year. I always struggled with lesson plans…