A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how my friend Junior had posted on his blog calling for people to write about what kind of a legacy we wanted to leave. I have been thinking a whole lot over the past few months about my progression as a teacher, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to really flesh out some about what kinds of things I have been through.

I’ve sort of broken things down by year and I would be interested to know how many other teachers could say their progress as a teacher has been similar. Clearly I have not yet arrived, but I have learned a handful of things along the way, and it’s been…

I’ve been thinking lately about trying to have each day be a sort of theme day. I don’t intend on posting every day (that’s not realistic for me at this time), but I would like for things to be a bit better aligned. So for instance, if I write a list article, I’ll schedule it for the next available Monday. If I have a blogging article, I’ll schedule it for the next available Wednesday. Or something along those lines. Here’s the ideas I’ve come up with:

Monday
Music Monday - I am a band director. I haven’t posted a whole lot about teaching band. I would like to overcome that and really begin to place a bit more emphasis…

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…

My Twitter friend @MissCalcul8 recently posted on her blog soliciting help from her readers about how to prepare for her first year as an official teacher. She has been subbing some this year.

I thought it was a great question, so I wanted to post my responses here as well as send you over to her blog to offer up some more suggestions (and perhaps subscribe to her RSS feed!). So without further ado, here are 7 things I would do before my first year as a teacher if I knew then what I know now.

1. Figure out a classroom management plan (with or without rules) that works well for you.
2. Make friends like crazy with other teachers.
3. If

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Despite my best efforts, my computer has crashed. It’s old and the thing was running pretty slowly. I have reinstalled Windows and am in the slow process of getting things back up to speed. But — needless to say, I am not going to be able to get the weekly review of the Student Teaching thing done. Looks like that will be a sort of double thing for this weekend.

A little bit of levity here, in light of my current Student Teaching Project. (By the way, if you are student teaching, join us by writing a blog and letting me know about it!)

Brought to you by TeacherPortal.com.

My buddy Mr. D who writes I Want To Teach Forever has started up a little project this year that I hope lasts all year. He is asking teachers to email him and write a guest post for him about “What is the most important advice you can give to other teachers?” The project is 52 Teachers, 52 Lessons.

I will obviously be submitting an article to the project (I had intended to do so before the end of December, but it didn’t work out). I wanted to provide him with a larger audience of people who might potentially write an article for him and get featured in this project that is sure to be a valuable addition to the…

So most schools have started their student teaching by now. If you know someone who has a blog and is student teaching this semester, please encourage them to contact me (or leave a comment) so that I can add their blog to my list. I was encouraged to read some of the great comments that came out on some of the posts from last week. Hopefully you can keep doing that this week. Here’s what I found in the world of student teaching this week.

• Saturday January 10 G Broaddus was Reflecting on student teaching , week 1. He also writes about Myths in the teachers’ lounge. Some good reflection, and some not-so-good reflection happens in there! Wish him

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With the end of what for many is the first week of student teaching, I wanted to look around at some of the blogs out there written by student teachers. I expect my Student Teaching Project to grow over the course of the semester, but for now I want to look at all of the student teaching related posts I know of from this week.

• Sunday January 4 – Mr. Spurlin writes out his Student Teaching Resolutions in which he lays out some plans that he has for this upcoming semester.
• Monday January 5 – Mattie writes The First Day… sigh in which she notices teacher dress code, students who resemble some of her former classmates, and the language

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I love the week following Christmas break. The students (and teachers) have accustomed themselves to staying up late. Many of them woke up Monday morning earlier than they went to sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. As a result, Monday and Tuesday were sleep-deprived transition days. Classroom management was much simpler on those days than many days so far this year.

I can’t help but think of those poor student teachers who have started waking up before 10am for the first time in years. With college class schedules having 15 minute breaks built in on busy days and three or four hour gaps of relaxation time on the standard days, how are they handling the workload of a real 8-hour day? What…

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…

If you are going to be student teaching in the spring semester of this school year, I want you to contact me. Before the end of this month. I am beginning work on a major project that will benefit you (and other students) tremendously.

Either comment or email.

A comment was left recently that said,

Joel, I really enjoy your blog. You have written some amazing articles that I have printed and put in my first year file. I am currently student teaching right now. I appreciate your honesty about how scary and hard it can be sometimes, but also the greatness in the experience. I am having the time of my life, and I hope the enthusiasm I have stays with me. Your blog is helping, so thank you! If you could give one single piece of advice to a beginning teacher, what would it be? Just curious!

That challenged me to see if I could come up with something I hadn’t written before that was better…

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…

Recently, a reader wrote to me saying:

I am currently midway through student teaching and am struggling with classroom management (surprise!). I am not really getting any feedback from my cooperating teacher, other than “use short, quick redirects” and “your emotions are too transparent to students”. I worked in business for 18 years prior to this experience and I’m just struggling with how to try and turn a tense situation around. I have read through the articles posted on this site and they have given me some good ideas to work with. Here is my question: What can you do to turn around a tense relationship with students who do not regard you as “the person in charge”? (I hear…

We’ve all been there. The beginning of the first year of teaching can be daunting, to say the least. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. First year horror stories abound. The number of teachers who quit after the first year or two of teaching matches or exceeds the number of teachers who stick with the profession.

My theory is that teachers leave the biz for lack of knowledge. College only can do so much in preparation. We hear of how much better student teaching was back in the day than it is now, and how poorly prepared prospective educators are these days. There may be validity in that, but lamenting these things doesn’t solve…