Urgent Personal Finance Advice Personal by Joel Wagner - June 21, 2008July 1, 20101 This public service announcement is brought to you by Seth Godin. Read it at once.
Parents, Students, And Teachers…Whose Right Is It Anyway? General by Joel Wagner - March 22, 2008July 2, 201010 Recently, I have come across a number of people writing about rights in the education sense. Some seem to pit parents, teachers, and students all against one another. Some seem to think that parents and students gang up against the poor teachers. Still others throw the wicked old administrators into the mix. It seems most of the bloggers I've read seem to have the teacher as the poor, mistreated, valiant hero against whom all the evil forces of society are lashing out. And then there are those who have it out for the Conservative Republican upstate hacks who call themselves "consultants" (see the comments on Matthew's blog). Whatever the case, it seems the discussion of parent-teacher relationships and dynamics bring
The Deep-Seated Problems With Public Education Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - March 16, 2008July 2, 20104 In case you haven't already seen it, this post of teacher misbehavior caught on cell phones from Dangerously Irrelevant has been making the rounds. I saw it on Seth Godin's blog, of all places. Seth's assessment is that the teachers have a marketing problem. Cam Beck thinks the problem is deeper than simply marketing. He says that the public schools have a product problem. I think we may be getting at the core of the issue with that. It's uncomfortable to address, but somehow it needs to be addressed. Personally, I see it as a combination of the two. Many public schools have a definite product problem. Many teachers have a marketing problem. My assertion is that this has been
47 Blogs That My Readers Are Reading Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 28, 2007July 2, 20108 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. A Teacher’s Education Adventures of a Christian Collegian Bionic Teaching The Blue Skunk Blog California Teacher Guy Confessions from the Couch Copyblogger Dangerously Irrelevant Dave Sherman David Armano dy/dan EdNotesOnline Education in Texas The Education Wonks FlyLady.net Fred Klonsky Frumteacher Head of the Class History is Elementary huffenglish.com Joyful Jubilant Learning Learn Me Good Lorelle on WordPress Ms. Frizzle Ms. Whatsit ms_teacher Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher New Scientist
Weekend Wrapup 08/20/07 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - August 20, 2007July 5, 20102 Happy Monday morning. I begin staff development this week. School begins in Texas next Monday. This spring, I began to make myself familiar with the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach to personal productivity. My views on effectiveness went into overdrive this summer as I read The 4-Hour Workweek. Timothy Ferriss has recently posted The Not-To-Do List, 9 things to make you more productive. Just a Substitute Teacher points us to an article in USA Today that has a great list of things that some school districts or schools do to get more subs. Check out How to Lure Substitute Teachers. Athena gives us a list called 10 Things I Learned In My First Year of Teaching. How many of us
8 Steps To Building A Better Blog Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - July 15, 2007July 5, 20102 This really has nothing to do with education. I wanted to take a chance to stop and address some things that happened this week in my life and the life of this blog. Every day in the past week except for Tuesday, So You Want To Teach? saw more than 50 visitors. It's not like that constitutes a high-traffic blog or anything, but I see healthy, steady growth and want to look at some of the things that I have done to see this growth. Add content I started the blog in February, but only posted three articles a month until we got to the last week of May. Those articles are pretty good and help to form the
More Links: Wednesday Website #3 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - July 11, 2007July 5, 20101 Wow. Today seems like Link To SoYouWantToTeach day in the blog world. Maybe I really should go on vacation more often! Eric Turner has featured my site as his Wedneday Website #3 for the week. Some of his comments include: First of all, the blog is written by a guy! Finally! A edublog written by a guy! I try. I like this guy cause he is posting some genuinely good stuff for teachers (or future teachers). Additionally, he has done everything possible to help you navigate his website; directing you to the posts you should read first and then elsewhere and such. When I first went on it, I felt like I was on a road map, it was that
9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick) Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - June 18, 2007August 9, 201679 Life as a teacher can be awfully challenging. While the challenges change as we gain experience, there are always new ones. It can be an awfully lonely time for many teachers. This article looks at 9 reasons to quit teaching and also raises 10 reasons to stick with teaching. Think of the many reasons you have to quit teaching Bad students Bad administrators Bad curriculum Too much paperwork Too much negativity Too much responsibility Not enough time Not enough credit Not enough PAY Face it, you are not as good of a teacher as you could be. You're not living up to your potential. Nobody is. Where am I? Seth Godin says that you are in The Dip (What's The Dip?). This is that place
How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy? (Or At Least How Do I Keep Them At Bay) General by Joel Wagner - June 12, 2007June 13, 20125 This article is part 6 of the series Questions That Will Save Your Career. Please read the other articles in the series.How Do I Keep My Students Quiet?How Do I Keep My Students Engaged?How Do I Keep My Students Interested?How Do I Keep My Students Learning?How Do I Keep My Students Away From Me?How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy?How Do I Keep My Sanity?10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Quiet?10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Engaged?10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Interested?10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Learning?10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Away From Me?10 Years of
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
8 Methods For Recruiting People Into Your Program Music Education by Joel Wagner - April 21, 2007July 5, 20100 As a band director dealing with beginning band, a substantial part of my energy each year is spent on recruiting 5th graders to be in band next year. I have generally done a pretty good job getting kids enrolled in the program, but this year I began to look at it from a marketing standpoint. The results have been incredible. We still have some more recruiting to go, but we have already increased the enrollment by about 35 from what it was at this point last year, and it looks like it may very well be more than 60 more students next year than we have this year. That's huge. We still have some marketing left to do in the
4 Tip’s For Being Respected Personal by Joel Wagner - April 1, 2007July 5, 20104 An Alarming Trend One of the things that I have come to realize is that, by and large, educators have a poor grasp of grammar and spelling. Maybe this is isolated to the United States, but part of me fears that is not the case. Since nearly all of my adult life has been spent in educational circles, I have no first-hand knowledge of other fields. It amazes me how often I get emails from secretaries, teachers, and even administrators which contain a remarkably poor grasp of the English language. The sad part is that it's often not accidental. They reuse the same misspellings throughout the same email, or even repeat them in further correspondence. But The Problem Is