Carnival of Education #163: Spring Break 2008 Edition Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 19, 2008July 2, 20107 I know some of you have already had spring break, and others haven't yet had it. Whatever the case, spring actually breaks tomorrow as the Vernal Equinox happens. In honor of the new season, you'll notice a handful of spring-like pictures. I hope you enjoy. I am spending my time off catching up on housework, doing my taxes, playing with my dogs, and doing some general maintenance with the blog. I surely don't want to waste my spring break, the time is too valuable! So instead, I decided to host the Carnival of Education. What was I thinking?!?!? Before I go, I wanted to mention that I have been reading a lot more blogs lately and I came across an
You Think You Pay Attention? What Else Are You Missing Out On? [VIDEO] General by Joel Wagner - March 18, 2008July 2, 20104 Just in time for March Madness Watch this video What did you just learn? How can you relate it to classroom management? Deep, man. Deep.
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
Whitespace General by Joel Wagner - March 15, 2008July 2, 20106 Have you noticed that People really don't like As I prepare my bands for the UIL Concert & Sight Reading contest that is now less than a month away, I have noticed that they seem to have a big problem with rests. For the uninitiated, rests in music represent silence. If I reduce the amount of noise that I make, my students will be more likely to hear the important things I tell them As I was talking with one of the classes on Friday about the incredible importance of the rests, I made a correlation about how we don't like rests because people really don't like silence. In the visual arts, typography, and graphic
An “Online Magazine Rack” Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 13, 2008July 2, 201011 I recently got an email from Guy Kawasaki, the noted Apple evangelist. He writes: Yesterday we announced a website that is a collection of "single-page aggregations" organized by topics such as Fashion, Celebrities, Sports, Gaming, Macintosh, Science, Green, and Autos. Here people can find odd news from dozens of sites, side-by-side, at a glance--think of it as an "online magazine rack." I hope that you will like it and will spread the word. I'm not exactly sure how So You Want To Teach? ended up in the list, but Alltop recently added an education category. Somehow, they have decided to include this blog in their list of 75 or so. Somehow somebody somewhere decided that my writing is
Around The Blogosphere: No Child Left Behind General by Joel Wagner - March 9, 2008July 2, 20105 Everyone's talking about it. It seems that everyone has been talking about it for nearly seven years now. So I thought it would be kind of interesting to see what various bloggers are saying about the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001 (NCLB). My personal opinion is that the law has good intentions, but they go about it entirely the wrong way. My preference would be for children to be educated by their own families rather than the state, but California courts seem interested in doing their part to see that it doesn't happen. Besides, too many homes have two incomes to make it reasonable for everyone (even if one income merely is there to support child care, an
Entering the Twittersphere Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20104 If you use Twitter, add me. I have been quickly glancing over blog posts about it lately, but never paid much attention. I see that more and more bloggers seem to be doing it. As I look at it, it seems much like Facebook and MySpace's status updates, so I'll go for it and see what happens. Some questions I have for my readers: Do you use Twitter? What do you do with it? Do you use it in the classroom? How?
Catching Up Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20100 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
Not The Best Day Ever Revisited General by Joel Wagner - March 7, 2008July 2, 20102 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
TAKS Day General by Joel Wagner - March 5, 2008July 2, 20105 We have our first of four TAKS test days today. They seem to have increased testing security quite a bit this year over last year. In fact, we are supposed to have some monitors from the state coming to our campus at some point during the day to make sure we are doing things correctly. I'm new at this campus, and things are run differently here than they were at the campus where I taught last year. We get to be with the students we are testing from before 8:00 to at least 2:00. We sit with the students in the cafeteria at lunch. We don't get a conference period. It's pretty much a wasted day as far as teaching
March 2007 Personal by Joel Wagner - March 1, 2008July 2, 20101 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
February 2007 Personal by Joel Wagner - February 26, 2008July 2, 20103 On February 11th, 2007 I wrote the first blog post that is included in the archives of So You Want To Teach? I didn 't actually set up the blog on this domain until June, but I thought that since the blog was now over a year old (at least as far as some of the content), I'd go back and take a look at some of the old stuff. By the way, none of them have any comments at this point... If you have a blog, you can direct some of that traffic your way simply by writing a good, thought-provoking comment 5 Keys To Educating People February 11, 2007 Classroom Management: The Key To Your Success
Change of Pace — Have You Ever…. Personal by Joel Wagner - February 24, 2008July 2, 20104 Idea stolen from Chris Thomas Have you ever: Changed a personal habit? What was it and how did you accomplish it? Lost more than 30 pounds? How did you do it and how did it make you feel? Paid off over $10,000 in debt? What steps did you take and how did the process affect your views of borrowing? Done something you never thought you could do? What and how? Done or said something you regret? What were the circumstances and what did you learn from the process?
Slow Down! Personal by Joel Wagner - February 23, 2008May 29, 20166 I realized some things today There will never be enough time to do everything I want to do There will never be enough money to do everything I want to do There will never be enough people to do everything I want to do The music will never sound good enough Kids will continue to fail their classes, no matter how important I tell them that passing is Parents will never be happy enough with everything I do in the classroom I will never be caught up on paperwork But ya know what else I realized? That's part of the enjoyment of the process. If I didn't have anything to do, I wouldn't be necessary. Meaningless tasks don't bring fulfillment, no matter
Apologizing General by Joel Wagner - February 21, 2008July 2, 20103 So on Tuesday, I wrote about an incident I had where I was awfully sarcastic with a student and it upset him. I received some great comments. The conversation is continuing over there. If you haven't chimed in, now would be a great time to do so. And better yet, subscribe to receive comments so you don't have to keep going back to check and recheck. So what did I do? How did I respond on Wednesday? Well, basically, I started out the percussion class by having them all sit in a row. I got them quiet and talked with them some. I asked them what some things were that they would change. As I expected, the most common responses