5 Tips To Putting The Pieces of Your Life Back Together

I recently took my band to the UIL Concert & Sight Reading competition. We worked hard on the music. We worked hard in after school sectionals. We worked hard on passing classes to retain eligibility. The end result was that the band got first division in the Concert portion of the contest, and first division … Read more

Turning The Ship: The Voyage To Becoming A Great Teacher

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 … Read more

Who Wants Some Great Reading?

Then hop on over to Learn Me Good and buy a copy of his book. It is undoubtedly one of the funniest books I’ve read since becoming a teacher. I read it on Fridays in the fall while I was monitoring our school-wide detention. I keep the kids absolutely silent during detention, and that’s hard … Read more

Look Who’s Talking Now!

April is already shaping up to be a record-setting month for So You Want To Teach? We are well on our way to seeing 16,000 visitors or more this month. I am way behind on emails. Please forgive me! I am way behind on comments. I am way behind on reading other blogs. UIL is … Read more

Parents, Students, And Teachers…Whose Right Is It Anyway?

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 … Read more

Whitespace

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. … Read more

Around The Blogosphere: No Child Left Behind

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 … Read more

Not The Best Day Ever Revisited

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 … Read more