This is a guest post by Pat Hensley from the blog Successful Teaching. As we gear up for the upcoming school year, So You Want To Teach? is featuring articles about making this school year the best year ever.

I have been teaching about 30 years now and I still love teaching! I have taught all grade levels including the university level and I still feel the same way. After teaching special education classes for 28 years in public schools, I now teach teachers getting their master’s degree in special education and write a blog called Successful Teaching. I really appreciate Joel for giving me the opportunity to be a guest writer on his blog.

Of course, at the beginning of the year,…

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…

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

It’s a job like no other because it involves both change and routine – you follow a similar routine every day and year after year, but you also see change in the form of different students and a new class every year. It may not be the highest paying job, but teaching at a school is probably one of the best options for most people because it not only allows you to grow as an individual, it also brings you a great deal of satisfaction because you know you’re making a significant difference in…

Over 10,000 of the visits to SYWTT this year came from nine sources. The top three alone actually sent me over 6,200 visitors. This is incredible, and I need to thank all of you for the help you’ve provided me.

Top referring blogs
These are the blogs that have sent the most visitors my way in 2009. I cannot thank these people enough for taking the time out of their schedule in one way or another and finding something on my site that resonated enough with them to send their readers my way. You people rock!

1. It’s Not All Flowers And Sausages
2. TutorFi.com with the post 50 Reasons Why I Enjoy Being A Teacher
3. Guy Kawasaki with the post

…

This weekend, I read Back to School: Tips for Teachers on Facebook on the Facebook blog. In it, the author writes:

Some teachers stay away from Facebook altogether, while others — like some of my friends — have found creative workarounds such as only accepting friend requests from students who’ve graduated or those who are over the age of 18. However, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. In fact, it is useful and rewarding to connect with your students on Facebook. So, in honor of all the people who are heading back to school this month, here are some tips for using Facebook.

The article continues by outlining some things that we as teachers can do to secure…

This is a guest post by Edward Kim from The Certification Map Team.

Joel, thanks for letting us write a guest post on your blog. This site is a great source for educators who want meaningful information with a down-to-earth touch.

For Joel’s regular readers, thanks for taking your time time to read this post. I want to start out by asking you a simple question: Do you know your state’s teacher certification requirements? How many of you have experienced or heard horror stories about people trying to navigate through your state’s Department of Education website trying to figure out the certification process (not to mention long phone conversations with the DOE that lead nowhere). It can be a…

New readers are coming to this blog all the time. As a new reader, the comments below will show you some of the many ways that reading this blog can be beneficial for you!

I have received a large number of comments and emails from people who tell me that they have been inspired to begin blogging as a result of this here blog. I must admit, I am very interested in getting other people to begin seeing the benefit of blogging through their experiences. I also am quite focused on personal growth in many areas of my life.

With that in mind, I know that I say some things very bluntly and don’t pull too many punches. Sometimes the…

I am getting emails coming in and have some friends who are about to start student teaching. Many of them seem to be expressing the same fear about going into student teaching.  As we  quickly approach what will for many be the first week of student teaching, I thought it would be helpful to throw out these 10 keys to unlocking the best possible student teaching semester ever.

I was fortunate that I had been teaching private lessons for three years already in the district where I student taught before I began. My school had a two semester process, with the first being mostly observation and the second being full internship. I spent far more than the required 8 hours…

Everybody loves being right. Everybody loves to win an argument. What if we change our mindset completely? What if we aim not to win outright, but to win by letting the other person win?

There are some situations where winning is vital. And there are far more situations where winning an argument will net no real benefit. These are the situations when it is okay to lose. In fact, losing may be the biggest victory of all.

How do we choose?
Dr. Laura Schlessinger often uses these three statements to evaluate if a battle is necessary:

1. Is it immoral?
2. Is it illegal?
3. Is it fattening?

If the answer to all three questions is “no,” then it may do…

I have gotten 4 comments in the last 24 hours from people telling me about a time in their life (past or present) where they were so focused on school that it completely stressed them out. A big part of that comes from the fact that so many of us have a hard time saying, “No!”

Personal time is a vital key to maintaining (or regaining) the sanity that we have lost as a result of our work. If the only people you hang around are kids, parents, teachers, and administrators, there can be no wonder you are burning yourself out!

Quick, read these articles!

• 25 Tips For Less Stress
• 65 Things You Should Do Right Now To Avoid

…

Everybody makes mistakes
Everybody has those days
Everybody knows what what I’m talkin’ ’bout
Everybody gets that way

Nobody’s Perfect!
I gotta work it!
Again and again ’til I get it right
Nobody’s Perfect!
You live and you learn it!
And if I mess it up sometimes,
Nobody’s perfect!

Oops. I got a little carried away there in my Hannah Montana glam rock! Sorry about that.

But it’s true, everyone messes up. Our students do, and so do we! I found that having a small group of teachers nearby really helped me out in the early years. I would go to dinner with some, I would call some up, I would…

If you have ever been in a typical band or orchestra room at the beginning or end of class, you know how utterly chaotic it can get. Kids throwing music into their folders, quickly rushing to take off reeds, shoving horns into cases, and running out the door to get to the next class. Then one inevitably comes running back in because he forgot to take off his neckstrap or loosen his bow or whatever.

Then the next class comes in. Excited to see each other, talking, rushing to take their instruments out, soak their reeds, prepare music, get set up, and the list goes on. Every day, someone feels it is necessary to tell me they forgot their instrument…

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…

Today is the official beginning of the Blog Revolution Project. The plan is to transform your blog entirely from something that simply holds some information to a valuable resource for others. Each day, I will write a brief article, end with a mission. Some missions will be things you can accomplish in a matter of minutes, while others will take a while.

Today’s topic is probably the most important, and ultimately should be the mission of your blog every single time you write something.

Add great content
If you want people to visit your blog, they will need to have a reason to visit. If you want people to return to your blog, they will need to have a…

As we come to the conclusion of Reader Appreciation Month, I want to summarize some of the things that we have learned. Today, I’ll focus on some of the character traits of people who were indicated by my readers as their favorite teachers. Some of the character traits were mentioned by multiple people. We’ll call these the Top 5 (Plus 14) Character Traits Of Superior Teachers. If you want to be a great teacher, these are the things you should begin to develop first.

Top 5 Character Traits of Great Teachers

1. Inspired me and never let me settle for anything less than my best (10)
2. Compassionate, caring, made me feel important and welcomed, made a personal connection with

…

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…

Download the entire series in e-book format here

This school year has been remarkably stress-free for me. As a middle school band director working with the non-varsity group, this is unheard of. I have come up with a list of 25 things I have done that have helped to make this happen. During the month of October, the busiest month of the year for people involved with Texas marching bands, I am going to spend each weekday writing very briefly on one of these tips. The articles will be much shorter than my normal articles, but they will be consistent.

1. Drink Water
2. Wake Up Earlier
3. Eliminate Junk Food
4. Increase Healthy Foods
5. Kill Your TV
6. Declutter Your Desk
7. Declutter

…

The most popular post I made to the blog in the entire month of August was The State of the Blog: 08/01/07. I glanced through it again today and was impressed by the changes that have happened in a month. Specifically, in the readership and authority arenas. it’s funny how a little change each day is much less noticeable when viewed daily than it is when viewed from a greater distance.

While numbers fluctuate from day to day, FeedBurner tells me that I have averaged 52 subscribers throughout the last 30 days. That number is up to 60 as of this morning. A month ago, we were hanging at 35. My Technorati Authority number has gone from 13 to 24…

So I wrote Shut Up And Teach! yesterday and have gotten mixed reactions from it. Some have argued that my points were good while others have complained that I am advocating tying the hands and muzzling educators to prevent them from fighting for social justice. People have even gone so far as to write articles in response. Whatever the case, I enjoy the conversation that has developed.

This tells me one of two things. Either:

1. I am completely wrong and totally out of line
   
2. I am at least partially right and hitting too close for comfort

Investigating the arguments
I am completely wrong and totally out of line
These arguments include the facts that some…

We’ve all seen them. People who are able to motivate large numbers of people to do things as a team. Great coaches, teachers, politicians, and even dictators. All of them are great motivators.

Until recently, I would have agreed with that statement.

I sat down this week and began reading through Bandmasters Review, the official publication of the Texas Bandmasters Association. The first article is entitled “The Real Key to True Leadership” by Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser.

In the article, Dr. Lautzenheiser argues that motivation can only come intrinsically. He refers to any attempts at extrinsic motivation as merely manipulation. Powerful stuff there.

So what is the source of motivation? Etymologically, the word “motivation” comes from the Latin word motere. This…