Just What Is A Good School

This is a guest post by Tom Anselm. His book, You’re Never Too Old For Space Camp is available in Ebook or Paperback formats from Booklocker.com.   “My kids go to a good school” What parent doesn’t want to be able to say this about the bricks and mortar location where they entrust their offspring … Read more

Be Respectable (Total Teacher Transformation Day 12)

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. As discussed last time, part of gaining respect from students comes from being respectful. The second element of earning the respect of your students (and their parents), comes from being respectable. No amount of courtesy to your students can … Read more

Find A Mentor – Again (Total Teacher Transformation Day 6)

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. I hope that this series so far has been useful for some of you. I’m not getting an overwhelming amount of feedback specifically on the series, but I guess I really can’t complain about over 40 (non-spam) comments in … Read more

Find A Motivator (Total Teacher Transformation Day 5)

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. Yesterday we looked at making phone calls and using parent pressure as a motivator for classroom management. Today, we’re going to go with a slightly more high-brow alternative, and one that tends to be more effective over the long … Read more

Find A Mentor (Total Teacher Transformation Day 3)

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. Let’s play a game I want you to think about your classes right now. Think about the four biggest trouble-makers on your roll sheet. Now imagine, what it would be like if they all got sent to … Read more

Total Teacher Transformation Begins

This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. As I suspected when I started this blog, there are a lot of teachers who don’t really have a strong grasp on how to be a great teacher. The number of emails and comments that I have … Read more

Heartbreaking Story

A reader wrote in with the following story. I don’t even know how to begin to respond to it, but I’ll add some thoughts at the end. Hopefully this reader’s experience will serve some of you somehow in the future. When I interviewed at my school, it appeared to be everything I wanted in a … Read more