Finishing Strong Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 28, 2007July 5, 20100 A band director I used to work with said this. The concept is that success comes from finishing something well. It's easy to start something great. Greatness comes from finishing something great. That is why greatness is so elusive. One And A Half Is Not The Same As Two I find myself saying the very thing to my students. Why? Because so many of them start notes well but give up before the end. One and a half is not the same as two. A half note does not get most of two beats, it gets two beats. Simple. But How Does This Apply To Me? Simple. Most of us teachers are at or near the end of the
The Dip Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 27, 2007July 5, 20100 It came in the mail on Friday. I read it on Saturday. This was my first opportunity to read a book by Seth Godin, and I sure was not disappointed. "The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit (And When To Stick)" and that's exactly what it is. Although Mr. Godin is primarily an internet marketing guru, the book can easily be applied to anything we do in life. Anything from relationships to business to where you are teaching to even overall career choice -- it's covered here. The book is broad in scope, and can be applied to any and all of these areas. At 76 pages (and not very tall pages at that), this baby
Be The Best Teacher In The World Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 19, 2007June 19, 20164 Dave Ramsey recently wrote an article entitled High-Performance Achievement and it's about his training to run of a marathon. In this article, we're going to look at how you can use that knowledge to help you become the best teacher in the world. In Seth Godin's latest book, "The Dip" (which I'm going to read this summer), he talks about being the best in the world. That term is defined basically as the best in your sphere of influence at doing what you do. My goal as a band director is to be the best band director in my school district. Then my goal is to have the best band at whatever competition we go to. Then my goal is to have
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
How Not To Waste Spring Break (or Summer Vacation, or Christmas Break, or Saturday, or Tonight!) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2007July 6, 20164 "I'm bored" No success will come from squandering time. Time is too precious to waste. The summer months and holiday weekend that we are afforded in the education business should not become an excuse to catch up on all the latest greatest movies and pack away the bon bons. Instead, these times seem to be best spent by analyzing where things stand with your current teaching position. What has worked so far this year? What will work better if I start doing it after the break? If it's summer, how can I start out the school year more prepared than I did last year? So what will I be doing over spring break?Another good thing to do is catch up on house
6 Motivation Techniques Inspiration by Joel Wagner - March 2, 2007June 29, 20164 Embed from Getty Images "What are you doing to motivate them?" I was talking with a friend this afternoon about her class. She is a second year teacher. She taught elementary last year and is teaching seventh grade this year. What a change! In the process of our conversation, I asked her, "what are you doing to motivate them?" She had no clue. Why motivate? Without motivation, your class is just another block of time that the students have to suffer through. With motivation, you hear things like "hi, favorite teacher!"Â and "I love this class!" As a teacher, those are the kinds of things that we absolutely love to hear. They say that about half of all teachers stop teaching before their sixth year.
5 Keys To Educating People Inspiration by Joel Wagner - February 11, 2007July 25, 20164 A Matter of Priorities During my first two years of teaching, I discovered that I had a whole lot of information, but the students just weren't listening to me or learning from me. It is not, mind you, because I was giving them wrong information. It was, however, because I had placed the priorities in the wrong order. When we have the proper perspective, we will end up teaching far more than we ever imagined we might teach. When I first got into the business of education, my priority was to educate children. So my philosophy could be summarized as: Educate When we have the proper perspective, we will end up teaching far more than we ever imagined we might teach.Not bad, but