Emails like this are the reason this site exists.

I am an 11-year high school English teaching veteran in the Los Angeles area. Most of my teaching was done in the trenches of suburban, low-SES “nay-bah-HOODS” and the fringes of, um, gangsta lands. (I teach English … go figure.) I’ve had my share of awesome kids, classes and experiences, and I’ve had my share of kids who practice “learned helplessness” and come to school looking like Snoop Droopy Drawers. Overall, I love my subject matter, and love working with high school age kids, especially helping them to “read, write and think your world” (one of my class mottoes).

I wanted to thank you for your no-nonsense, honest site that both…

Ivy writes:

I am in my first year as a Special Education teacher. My class is out of control. Kids are yelling at each other. Nobody is focused on their work. I am yelling and screaming and they are talking back and yelling back at me. Everybody is trying to help me out. Some say I need to be more positive, some say I need to be stronger and more strict. I do not know what to do. As a group, they are against me. The situation is very confrontational. I can not stop them going crazy. The kids know it. They are going crazy but they do not care. Some kids even have a lot of fun of it….

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

…

In rereading the last about teacher burnout, I was struck by a handful of things that my reader mentioned in the email. I thought it was powerful enough that it was worth digging into deeper, and yet I didn’t want to dilute the conversation that might come as a result of the emotional impact of the reader’s email.

With that being said, here are 20 insights from a 17-year veteran teacher about things that teachers ought to be doing.

1. Take care of your body
2. Avoid whiners
3. Get more sleep
4. Accept imperfection from yourself
   
5. Don’t expect to make everyone happy
6. Don’t abuse your sick days, but do use them
7. Relax more
8. Have trusted friends who can smack you upside the

…

About a month ago, I received this email in my Inbox:

After 17 years of teaching, I was diagnosed with ‘burnout’ and needed to take some time off. I fought it, but when the lab results showed body systems shutting down, I complied… for awhile. Part-time only made it worse. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I LOVED my job, my students, my teaching. I dreaded the politics, the nay-sayers, the whiners. Still, how could I be burned out? I thought that only happened to folks who hated what they were doing or had been there too long. It seems remaining a teacher at the top of your game requires more than 3 hours of sleep per night,…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Clix, the author of Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable.

Things I wish I knew when I was a first-year teacher:

1. Backward Design – Reviewing the standards and keeping them in mind as I plan my units and my lessons helps me to clarify for the students what they need to learn.
2. Each year will continue to get better (at

…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Scribbler, the author of Scribbler’s Den.

This has been a great exercise. I have so much to write about now!

1. A school’s focus on student results and grades is not necessarily a focus on their education. You should focus on their education.
2. The structure of the school year into units, terms and semesters mean the years will pass by

…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Emily, a regular reader of this blog.

1. NEVER assume your kids know the basics, you might be surprised.
2. It’s not you personally, but it might have been something you overlooked.
3. Sometimes, patience isn’t enough, though it will get you through the tough times.
4. First and foremost: love your students first, then share your knowledge.
5. Classroom Procedures should be set up

…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Pat Hensley, the author of Successful Teaching.

1. Knowing how to set up a grade book and weighing different assignments
2. Have a support system
3. Meeting with other new teachers and sharing day to day problems
4. Technology (computers in the classroom didn’t exist back then)
5. Constructive criticism from someone who actually taught in my subject area
6. Real textbooks (I had to

…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Doug Johnson, the author of the wildly popular Blue Skunk Blog. Since he already posted his top 10 list on his own blog, I’ll go ahead and send you over there so you can see his first year teaching picture. He’s a brave man!

This is in response to (a very flattering) request by Joel on his So…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from David Warlick, the author of the wildly popular 2¢ Worth.

It is important to note that when I interviewed for my first teaching job and was offered the position, I didn’t know that I had been interviewing for a Math vacancy, and they didn’t know that they has been interviewing a Social Studies teacher. I accepted the job, however, and…

Thanksgiving is a holiday for remembering what we have and giving thanks to our God for His blessings. I like to spend the months of November and December reaching out and giving. I practice giving as a regular habit throughout much of my life, but I specifically focus in these two months on giving back to my blogging community.

Last year I highlighted a number of readers with Reader Appreciation Month. At the end, I did some great summaries:

• 50 Classroom Management Tips I Have Learned This Month
• 47 Blogs That My Readers Are Reading
• Top 5 Character Traits Of Great Teachers
• 50 Reasons To Love Your Job As A Teacher

I recently created a list of 10…

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…

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 reasons my readers have shared with me about why they love their jobs. Here are 50 reasons to love your job as a teacher.

50 reasons to love your job as a teacher

1. Sharing my experiences
2. Helping inexperienced teachers solve problems
3. The ability to help children achieve their best
4. Inspiring them not only academically but personally
5. Getting up on my stage and performing for them, too
6. The thrill of a good and well thought out lesson is incomparable
7. The kids’ energies; their inquisitiveness makes me want to go and teach

…

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

…

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 the incredible depth of blogs that readers have told me they read. So here are the 47 blogs that my readers are reading.

1. A Teacher’s Education
2. Adventures of a Christian Collegian
3. Bionic Teaching
4. The Blue Skunk Blog
5. California Teacher Guy
6. Confessions from the Couch
7. Copyblogger
8. Dangerously Irrelevant
9. Dave Sherman
10. David Armano
11. dy/dan
12. EdNotesOnline
13. Education in Texas
14. The Education Wonks
15. FlyLady.net
16. Fred Klonsky
17. Frumteacher
18. Head of the Class
19. History is Elementary
20. huffenglish.com
21. Joyful Jubilant Learning
22. Learn Me Good
23. Lorelle on WordPress
24. Ms. Frizzle
25. Ms. Whatsit
26. ms_teacher
27. Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher
28. New Scientist

…

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 the incredible wealth of knowledge that we have learned about classroom management.

I found that when I put all of the tips together, I had over 70 suggestions. I combined a few of them and broke them down into categories. The tips all fell into four categories: Personal, Student and Parent Relationships, Organization and Teaching, and Behavior and Rules. After consolidating, I came up with 50 classroom management tips I have learned this month.

Personal tips for effective classroom management

1. Find out who you are as a person; find your strengths, weaknesses, and

…

With all of the great responses I have read with the Reader Appreciation Month, I decided to go ahead and fill out the survey as well.

Name: Joel
Location: The border of Texas and Mexico
Occupation: Middle School Band Director
Blog: So You Want To Teach?

Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
Inspiring children. Spreading my passion for music, life, and learning. Watching the students grow year after year. Recruiting kids into my program. Being creative with the music. Transforming students from knowing nothing about how to play an instrument to being able to perform complicated (for them) music by the end of the year. Demonstrating the value of long-range planning to achieve crazy…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today’s featured reader is Pamela.

Name: Pamela
Location: Michigan
Occupation: Elementary Teacher, Reading Specialist
Blog: Blog may be coming soon, but none yet ;-)

Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
Some of my favorite things about teaching: I enjoy sharing my love of learning and my passion for certain topics. It goes beyond just teaching the material…it’s about making a personal connection with the students. Along those same lines, I love sharing the excitement of a good book. When I introduce it and starting talking about it with excitement, the students can’t wait for me to start reading. When it’s time to stop…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today’s featured reader is Jonathan.

Name: Jonathan
Location: The Bronx
Occupation: High School Math teacher
Blog: JD2718

Tell me some of your favorite things about your job
I love kids and I love math. How many jobs can combine them? I guess the guy at the carnival who counts the kids getting on the rides, but he has to clean puke, so that’s out of the question. Honestly, I can, in the space of 55 minutes, (on a good day) get booed for telling a bad joke, discuss planetary motion or the etymology of “radish,” clearly explain how a new-for-them algebra technique flows from their previous knowledge,…