Almost Finished Personal by Joel Wagner - June 2, 2009June 30, 20100 We are halfway through the Total Teacher Transformation series. I've been pretty much forced to take a break from it because of the busyness of the end of the school year. It will resume next week. This week, I plan to do a wrapup of the 08-09 school year. I just thought I should drop all of you a note to thank you for continuing to visit and link to my blog and also let you know I am still alive...
The Busyness of Teaching New Teachers by Joel Wagner - January 7, 2009June 30, 20103 I love the week following Christmas break. The students (and teachers) have accustomed themselves to staying up late. Many of them woke up Monday morning earlier than they went to sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. As a result, Monday and Tuesday were sleep-deprived transition days. Classroom management was much simpler on those days than many days so far this year. I can't help but think of those poor student teachers who have started waking up before 10am for the first time in years. With college class schedules having 15 minute breaks built in on busy days and three or four hour gaps of relaxation time on the standard days, how are they handling the workload of a real 8-hour day? What
Efficient vs. Effective General by Joel Wagner - June 6, 2007July 5, 20101 This week, I began reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. It's an outstanding book. One of the points that he makes in the book is that of being efficient versus being effective. I have prided myself in some ways on being very efficient in most of the things that I do. There is definitely a place for efficiency. But is efficiency to be the goal of everything that we do? I propose that it is not. This can be seen in many things in life. An efficient pitcher in baseball is the one who throws the least pitches. And effective pitcher is the one who has the most results. Now, clearly being both effective and efficient should be the