Restoring Hope To Your Teaching Job Inspiration by Joel Wagner - October 7, 2008June 5, 20164 I've noticed something lately. I have gotten a handful of comments and emails from people who seem to be teaching in what appears outwardly as a hopeless situation. I contend that the problem very rarely is in their situation. The problem rests in the lost joy and the long forgotten hope they once had. The dream is not shattered, it simply is not in sight right now. Why have we lost sight of that hope? Because we lack focus. My assertion is that we have lost focus because we are too busy reacting to events and items that try to wrestle our attention away from the important things. Jonathan wrote a great article about dealing with your mailbox last week. I think
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
Tools For Success Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - July 14, 2007July 5, 20104 Last weekend, I began considering Why do teachers quit? As someone who is very interested in maintaining a strong educational system, and someone who wants to see children get the best education possible, it is an important question to me. As we continue pondering this, we want to begin this weekend looking at some ways that we might be able to keep teachers from quitting. If there is a problem, find the underlying source Simply realizing that teachers quit is not the answer. Simply treating symptoms may solve the problem on an isolated basis, but it doesn't really begin to scratch the surface of where we really need to be working. So we need to dig a little deeper and