The Unfairness of Equality General by Joel Wagner - December 31, 2008July 1, 201011 In what has turned out to be some of the best comment-produicing material on this blog, I wrote about Asperger's Syndrome early this month. Amidst the comments, G. Broaddus dropped this little gem: Fairness in the classroom is not always about giving equal tasks; it is sometimes about giving students an equal chance to succeed, and clearly a student with Asperger’s will need a different way to demonstrate learning than his or her “typical” peers. He then later fleshed out that idea on his own blog with the post Fairness and equality in the classroom. Please check out his post to read some of these thoughts. As we take this break and get ready to go back into our classes
Calling All Storytellers Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 29, 2008July 1, 20102 Mr. Teacher has one of the most entertaining blogs I've seen. In fact, I recommend his blog Learn Me Good to most of my friends who are looking for restroom reading material! I have recently written a guest post for him that will be appearing over there sometime in the next week or so. While I normally write useful tips and hints for educators, his blog is often filled with humorous anecdotes gleaned from the life of a third grade teacher. I figured I would cater my guest article to his audience and made sure to remove all potentially useful information from it. It's an amazing story about one of the most unique Christmas gifts I have ever received from
101 Great Teaching Tips New Teachers by Joel Wagner - November 30, 2008June 5, 20164 A comment was left recently that said, Joel, I really enjoy your blog. You have written some amazing articles that I have printed and put in my first year file. I am currently student teaching right now. I appreciate your honesty about how scary and hard it can be sometimes, but also the greatness in the experience. I am having the time of my life, and I hope the enthusiasm I have stays with me. Your blog is helping, so thank you! If you could give one single piece of advice to a beginning teacher, what would it be? Just curious! That challenged me to see if I could come up with something I hadn't written before that was better (or close
Reader Appreciation 2008: Emily Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 6, 2008July 1, 20104 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question: What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching? Today’s response is from Emily, a regular reader of this blog. NEVER assume your kids know the basics, you might be surprised. It's not you personally, but it might have been something you overlooked. Sometimes, patience isn't enough, though it will get you through the tough times. First and foremost: love your students first, then share your knowledge. Classroom Procedures should be set up
Reader Appreciation 2008: Doug Johnson Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 4, 2008July 1, 20102 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question: What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching? Today’s response is from Doug Johnson, the author of the wildly popular Blue Skunk Blog. Since he already posted his top 10 list on his own blog, I'll go ahead and send you over there so you can see his first year teaching picture. He's a brave man! This is in response to (a very flattering) request by Joel on his So You Want
Get Ready For Reader Appreciation Month 2008 Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - October 28, 2008July 1, 20101 Thanksgiving is a holiday for remembering what we have and giving thanks to our God for His blessings. I like to spend the months of November and December reaching out and giving. I practice giving as a regular habit throughout much of my life, but I specifically focus in these two months on giving back to my blogging community. Last year I highlighted a number of readers with Reader Appreciation Month. At the end, I did some great summaries: 50 Classroom Management Tips I Have Learned This Month 47 Blogs That My Readers Are Reading Top 5 Character Traits Of Great Teachers 50 Reasons To Love Your Job As A Teacher I recently created a list of 10
Thank You! Personal by Joel Wagner - October 16, 2008July 5, 20103 I told one of my former college professors about my blog shortly after it first started back in 2007. She liked what she saw and decided to use some of my material in one of her classes. In fact, she used So You Want To Teach? as an assignment for one of her classes this semester. Each of the students was assigned to leave a comment on something that I posted on here. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from her last week asking for my mailing address so that her class could send me a card. The card came in the mail today and I want to thank Dr. Witt for her wonderful work and inspiration as
Life Lesson 5: Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit General by Joel Wagner - October 15, 2008July 1, 20100 Today is Blog Action Day. The topic of choice for this year is poverty. I want to approach it from a completely different viewpoint than most of the bloggers are. I want to look at the spiritual aspect of poverty. And seeing the multitudes, [Jesus] went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:1-3 (NKJV) Something that has become very evident to me over the past few years is just how self-centered I am. A lot of the time, I say selfish things as a joke, but I also realize
Blogging Your Way To Being A Great Teacher Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - September 22, 2008May 29, 20160 Blogging makes me a better teacher. It's clearly not the only thing that makes me a better teacher, but it is a tremendous benefit. This is the second installment in my series on 10 Things I Wish I Knew As A First Year Teacher. I have previously written on this subject back in January (8 Ways Blogging Makes Me A Better Teacher). At the time, I was in the midst of dealing with a medical emergency. The other band director I work with had a stroke in December and was actually out for over three months. That was back when I had 146 blog subscribers, by the way. Currently I the blog is approaching 450. The benefits for me about blogging from that
10 Things I Wish I Knew As A First Year Teacher New Teachers by Joel Wagner - September 20, 2008August 5, 201624 Pat, over at Successful Teaching, recently tagged me in her blog challenge. She suggested that I write an article about the single most important piece of advice I would give a new teacher. It's odd that she would write that, as it has been something I've been thinking about a lot lately. So much so, in fact, that my list goes beyond one. Each remaining day this month, I plan to elaborate on each of these subjects, but the list for now will suffice. Get a handle on classroom management early Start a blog now! Establish a small circle of teacher friends Make efforts to reach every student Pacing Establish clear, concise, comprehensive classroom rules Maintain your old lifestyle after your
Bloggers Gone Wild!!! General by Joel Wagner - July 20, 2008July 1, 20102 I am on vacation from July 21st through July 30th! I'll be going to visit my parents, some friends, cruising Texas, and end up at the Texas Bandmasters Association convention. I'm conducting an experiment while I am out. I'm calling it Bloggers Gone Wild. I will not write a comment or post on the blog for the duration of my trip. I will read comments and posts on the blog from time to time. I will check my email periodically. I don't get it Of course you don't get it. There is more. I will create user accounts if you email me and ask for one. Once your account has been created, you will receive an email
Student Absences & Make-Up Work…What Do You Do? General by Joel Wagner - July 15, 2008July 1, 201011 This article was recently featured in the Carnival of Education, #180. Check it out if you haven't already! I was recently asked about how I handle student absences and make-up work. As a band director, generally an absence simply means they missed out on a rehearsal and we don't have a lot of make-up work to assign. This gives me limited experience dealing with the issue. I am confident that most of the readers of this blog have far more experience in this realm. So it got me thinking, and I want to throw some questions out you you. How do you handle make-up work for students? What steps do you take for students with excessive absences? What
On The Brink Of Quitting Inspiration by Joel Wagner - June 25, 2008July 1, 201010 Lisa writes: I googled "bitter about teaching" and came up with your blog. I was recently let go from a school I busted my a$$ in for a whole year (my first year) - constant criticism, cattiness, and pointing out and embellishing the negative things I had done while minimizing the positive (all the while they were telling me to stay positive!). She concludes her email: I just wanted to let you know that your blog picked me up a little bit. I still have a lot of healing to do, but I'm glad that I'm not the only person that this has happened to. What an awesome thing! In case you missed the story, here are a few articles
Why Do We Do What It Is That We Do? General by Joel Wagner - June 19, 2008July 1, 20101 My blog has been running on a fairly regular basis now for over a year. I have a wealth of information stored in the archives here. So often, some of the great writing of the past has gone overlooked. One of the most common reasons for this is that the majority of you who are reading this didn’t even subscribe to this blog 5 months ago. Some of the best content I’ve written on the blog was put online last spring or summer. But it so often gets overlooked. Some of it needs to be rehashed from time to time as new readers come along. I have implemented some related posts plugins and some other techniques as well as trying
07-08: What Didn’t Work Well General by Joel Wagner - June 15, 2008July 1, 20105 As we begin the summer vacation, I am looking back on what went really well this year, what didn’t work so well, and what needs to change for next year. Below are some of the negatives about this year: Lack of social life - While not entirely true, and things have changed for the positively since I began playing in a mariachi in April. But I still notice that I am far away from my family and many of my friends before I moved down here. Even after being in South Texas for four years, I find that my social life is limited to time spent with other band directors, and a small handful of church friends. Maybe that's