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 way free of charge.

1. Choose your battles
2. Bite your tongue
3. When someone offers you unsolicited advice, give them the impression that you are listening
4. When someone offers you unsolicited advice, listen to them and apply the advice as quickly as possible
5. Most unsolicited teaching advice is given because of a perceived urgent deficiency in your teaching
6. When talking with students about negative behaviors, don’t chase other adults away, they could be used to validate your side of the story if the student or students gang up on you
7. Talk less
8. Only fix one problem at a time
9. Keep students engaged as much as possible
10. Think before you speak
11. Think twice before you discipline
12. Establish a consistent routine and stick with it
13. Finding faults without providing solutions is complaining; and nobody likes a constant complainer
14. Just because something is in black and white doesn’t mean it is going to stay that way
15. Just because someone is in your email inbox doesn’t mean it is going to stay that way
16. Just because someone overheard someone say it doesn’t mean it is going to stay that way
17. You need to teach fundamental technique before you can presume to teach musicality
18. Keep reviewing the fundamentals
19. Most performance problems kids have stem from fundamental problems
20. Control your classroom
21. Practice “the look”
22. Practice getting a classroom silent armed only with “the look”
23. Shut up and teach
24. Many problems can be ironed out with more repetition
25. Prioritize your time
26. Turn the ringer off
27. Kill your cell phone while you are teaching — completely
28. Get out of debt as fast as possible
29. Spend less than you make
30. Don’t save for retirement at 8% compounded annually when you are still borrowing money at 20% compounded daily (credit)
31. Don’t save for retirement at 8% compounded annually when you are still borrowing money at 5.5% compounded monthly (loans)
32. Use cash
33. Pay your bills on time (nothing says “good morning” quite like a 6:30am gym shower)
34. Set multiple alarm clocks
35. Don’t check your email first thing in the morning
36. Don’t check your email right before you leave school
37. Be friendly to office staff
38. Say or wave hello to your principal every day if possible
39. Don’t gossip about students
40. Don’t gossip about teachers
41. Don’t gossip about administrators
42. Ask for help
43. Get to know the parents of your students
44. Communicate better
45. Videotape yourself teaching and watch it with an unbiased eye
46. Don’t try to be friends with the students
47. Don’t try to be enemies with the students
48. Relate with the students as you would with any other person — respectfully
49. Establish systems and routines for repetitive paperwork tasks (assign a student to take attendance each day, etc.)
50. Don’t do anything simply because you think other people expect it or because you don’t want to let them down

Joel Wagner

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.