joel I participated in the Reform Symposium recently and hosted a session entitled 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Explained Before My First Teaching Job. Go to the link here. A lot of these things are topics I’ve covered before, but here is what looks to be the outline for now. Professional Sanity Get a handle on classroom … Read more
KMB writes: I’m starting student teaching this Spring and would really like some advice, tips, and resources to help me out. I’m sure 12th graders are very bright, and I don’t want to bore them. I also want to appear knowledgable and professional. Anyway, please contact me if you have any suggestions. Websites with lesson … Read more
A friend recently mailed me a copy of the book The Line and the Dot: Alternative thoughts on vision by Paul Gibbs. The book intrigued me because there is very little information on the outside of the book and I trust my friend’s recommendation. So I began reading a little bit. Tonight I came across … Read more
Ramona’s comment inspired me to write 15 Tricks To Transform Yourself From Classroom Bully Into A Favorite Teacher a few days ago. Yesterday, it inspired Joey to leave a comment. The excerpt that jumped out at me was this: In response to Ramona’s post, I see 680 students some twice a week, some once every … Read more
On this post, Karen comments: I need help. I’ve been teaching in NYC alternative high school for 9 years. I can’t get my act together. I can’t plan lessons, it just seems like such torture. my mentor(thank you UFT) keeps telling me to keep the objective in mind…well, I can’t seem to do it, am … Read more
Ramona writes: I am a first year teacher struggling with classroom management at the elementary school level. I have some logistical challenges because I don’t have my own classroom and travel between classes and schools with a cart. I also have almost 300 different students I see every week. But mostly my problem is that … Read more
I have had countless discussions lately with some of the newer teachers around me about some general concepts. This is just a random list of a few of the suggestions I have passed along to some of them that might be helpful to you or someone you know in some way. And it comes you … Read more
This school year is turning out to be pretty crazy in a lot of ways. I’m now in my ninth year of teaching and am working firsthand with a third year teacher on a regular basis teaching 6th grade beginner band. I also have the opportunity to work alongside a first year strings teacher, a … Read more
The following comment was left yesterday and I thought it was worthy of its own article as I have seen numerous things of this type happen over the years: This is my first year as a professional teacher; I have three (90-minute block scheduled) enthusiastic groups of students who have begun to test their boundaries. … Read more
This year I am in the position to be able to work relatively closely with two first-year teachers and a second-year teacher. I also am working full time with a third-year teacher. One of my primary objectives this year is to be able to talk through some of their challenges and hopefully offer some suggestions … Read more