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…

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

…

By this point in the semester, some student teaching programs are wrapping up. Others are just about halfway through. Whatever the case, I think most of our student teacher readers are coming to realize that teaching is not quite what they expected it would be in many regards. I think many of them are beginning to realize that they will really miss (some of) the kids after they finish for the year.

G. Broaddus recently noted that he has been quite a bit more busy this semester than he anticipated. Unexpected events have taken place. Just under a month ago, he realized that daily blogging is a big commitment. It’s okay. His blogging has definitely been valueable for him, as…

Well, I’m sitting here in a motel room in San Antonio. I am trading some of my time with a band director friend. I came here to teach trumpet and horn sectionals yesterday since I’m on spring break this week and he had it last week. In turn, he’s going to come in next week and clinic my band. Basically what that means is that he’s going to rehearse them for two hours and tell them stuff they can do to make it better.

It also gives me a chance to step back and listen more closely. When I’m conducting and everything, I hear things, but not everything. This is why I record my band regularly. As an aside, if you…

As I’ve written in the past in How Not To Waste Spring Break (or Summer Vacation, or Christmas Break, or Saturday, or Tonight!), I prefer to spend my down time doing things productive.

I am fortunate that my school is off for this entire week. So what have I done?

• Caught up on housework
  As a single guy, housekeeping just doesn’t seem to find its way to the top of my priority list all the time. This weekend, I caught up on laundry, cleared out some space in my spare bedroom and made it a functional office, completely cleaned the living room, and just got caught up on things that fall behind.
• Mariachi practice
  Mariachi has become

…

1. Freedom from oppression
2. Doing what I love and making money for it
3. Freedom of faith
4. The Bible
5. Hymns
6. My family
7. My friends
8. My dogs
9. My home
10. My blog
11. Clarinet
12. Learning
13. The opportunity to learn
14. Dave Ramsey
15. My iPod
16. My laptop
17. Summer “break”
18. Spring break
19. Christmas break
20. Trumpet
21. My students
22. Making music
23. Mariachi
24. Text messages
25. My iPhone 3G that I’ll be rewarding myself with next week
26. WordPress
27. The color blue
28. Enchiladas
29. Cheesecake
30. Texas
31. Drum & Bugle Corps
32. Preaching
33. Teaching
34. Accomplishing things
35. Creating things
36. The feeling of being organized
37. Water
38. Horn
39. Making progress
40. Learning to play golf
41. IHOP
42. Winter
43. Rain
44. Clouds
45. Happy memories
46. Abstract Art
47. Shostakovich
48. The look on someone’s face when they are learning something
49. The look on someone’s face

…

Dominga recently left a comment on the blog:

I have a rough 5th grade class. most of them are hol overs and have behavioral problmes. There is too much attitudes(girls) there is no self control and self dicipline (two boys) what should I do. I’ve called parentsand it works for two days. I,ve take nots and had parents visit the school and no cigar. Give me advice. I see myslef sometimes not teaching for a good 10 minutes which is horrible. Most of the time i have to bribe them with candy oir snacks. But how far does that take me? I need a respons asap. thanx.

I have felt this pain before! My response was:

Lemme start out by…

I have had quite a few sites link to me lately and I have not returned the favor. If you have linked to me at any point, please trust that I will be linking to you within the next three months. I’m telling you, this site will go crazy after the school year is over. I may be able to do some more catching up over spring break in a week or so. We’ll see what happens.

Joseph Pisano has posted the latest Official List Of The ME Bloggers.

jd2718 added me to his March link updates. He also said I’m a great idea and very helpful. Awww, thanks!

Wow, where has the time gone? I’ve been featured in a…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an experience I had where a student left my classroom crying and went to talk with the counselor. Read about it here. Be sure to read the comments below the article also!

Since then, I apologized. I also made the commitment to slow down my teaching style.

I wanted to take a chance to revisit that incident and follow up on some of the things that have happened since then, as well as some of the aftermath.

On the Monday morning following the weekend when I had decided to slow things down, I was amazed and surprised to see the other band director walk in just before the percussion class. I left this…

As we begin the month of March, I want to take a look back a year ago and see where my thoughts and focus were oriented. For me, this is productive as it helps me to see the progress, or more accurately the changes, that have happened over the last year.

For me, this is productive as it helps me to see the progress, or more accurately the changes, that have happened over the last yearLast March I seem to have been really focusing on motivation (both with the students and with myself). This time of year can really begin to drag on, especially as we look to spring break and realize that there are few if any three day…

I returned home from the Texas Music Educators Association clinic and convention this weekend. It was different TMEA experience for me than what I have been accustomed to in the past. One of the primary reasons for this was because I desperately needed the vacation more than I have in the past.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that the band director with whom I work had a stroke in December and has now been out for 8 weeks of classes. The workload I have is not more than I can handle at any given time, but when combined, it adds up and has been taking its toll on me. He anticipates being back before spring break. Only…

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…

I used to drink sodas all the time. I drank Dr. Pepper numerous times daily while I was in junior high and high school. I “became smart” and started drinking Diet Coke when I got to college. Still, daily. I cut out caffeine from my diet last August but continued drinking Diet Sprite every day.

Then I learned how important water is to the people of the world. I learned that most Americans are chronically dehydrated. So I tried it out beginning last Spring Break. I began drinking virtually nothing but water. I have eliminated all carbonated drinks from my dietary intake, as well as most juice and other non-carbonated drinks. I feel better. I have also learned that there…

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…

“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…