Reader Appreciation: Miss A Reader Appreciation by Miss A - November 13, 2007July 5, 20100 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is Miss A.Name: Miss A Location: Urban city in the South Occupation: Teacher, World history, African American History 9-12 grade. Mostly 9th grade Blog: Confessions From The Couch Tell me some of your favorite things about your job Facilitating games, watching students "get it," being able to explore diverse issues and situations. Tell me some things you loved about your favorite teacher(s) They were interactive, they were demanding, had high expectations, friendly. List some of your most effective classroom management strategies Interactive classroom seating chart, behavior contracts. Name (up to) three other blogs that you frequently visit/subscribe Secondhand Thoughts Teaching in the Inner
Reader Appreciation: Angela Maiers Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 12, 2007May 29, 20165 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is Angela Maiers. Name: Angela Maiers Location: Des Moines, Iowa Occupation: National Education Consultant, author, Adjunct Professor teaching post graduate work in the area of reading and literacy Blog: Angela Maiers Tell me some of your favorite things about your job That is a hard one. I LOVE MY JOB. I feel like I have the best of all education worlds. I love teaching grad school, my students are amazingly dedicated teachers, I have the opportunity to travel across the United States helping teachers and schools work at the grassroots level to improve students lives, and my favorite part is working with the students. EAch week, I am invited to do demonstration
Reader Appreciation: Mister Teacher Reader Appreciation by Mister Teacher - November 9, 2007July 5, 20100 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is Mister Teacher.Name: Mister Teacher Location:Near Dallas, TX Occupation: Teacher, 3rd grade math and science Blog: Learn Me Good Tell me some of your favorite things about your job My coworkers are great, I enjoy all of the funny stories that my job provides, my job is NEVER EVER boring, and when I am finally able to actually TEACH, I feel very rewarded when that little light bulb goes off. Tell me some things you loved about your favorite teacher(s) Kept things interesting, used humor, was encouraging. List some of your most effective classroom management strategies I do the same stuff as Jack Bauer on 24.
Reader Appreciation: Eric Turner Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 8, 2007July 5, 20100 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is Eric Turner. Name: Eric Turner Location: Tennessee Occupation: History/Secondary Ed Student Blog: Secondhand Thoughts Tell me some of your favorite things about your job I love learning and I love the interaction between professor and students Tell me some things you loved about your favorite teacher(s) Whew, this is a hard one. I think the things I loved about the teachers I loved is the high standards they maintained, yet were also compassionate, fair, and understanding. Oh, and they each had a great sense of humor. They each inspired me in their own way. How they inspired me is hard to define. Some of the ways were the
Reader Appreciation: Gillian King Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 7, 2007July 5, 20100 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is Gillian King. Name: Gillian King Location: Sydney, Australia Occupation: I run a marketing consultancy, but I started out as a High School teacher Blog: School of St. Jude -- My blog supports the School of St Jude, a free school for bright kids from the poorest homes, in Tanzania. These kids rarely get to finish primary school, and typical class sizes are 60-70, so the School of St Jude is like a haven for these capable kids. Tell me some of your favorite things about your job One of my favourite things about the School of St Jude that it was started by an Australian
Reader Appreciation: ms_teacher Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 6, 2007July 5, 20100 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is ms_teacher. Name: ms_teacher Location: Northern California Occupation: Professional Educator (aka teacher); Grade 6, mostly Language Arts and Social Studies Blog: ms_teacher Tell me some of your favorite things about your job Favorite things about teaching: Being able to interact with kids who are mostly good and do try to do what’s expected of them; sharing my enthusiasm for my subject matter – you should hear me talk to them about why I love Mesopotamia, even more than the ever popular Egypt! I also enjoy seeing their growth over the nine months I have them. They come into middle school as scared elementary students and leave at the end
Reader Appreciation: José Vilson Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 5, 2007July 5, 20102 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? Today's featured reader is José Vilson.Name: José Vilson Location: New York, NY Occupation: 6th Grade Math Teacher Blog: The José Vilson Tell me some of your favorite things about your job My favorite things about my job are the ability to help children achieve their best, inspiring them not only academically but personally. I also like getting up on my stage and performing for them, too. The thrill of a good and well thought out lesson is incomparable. I love the kids' energies. Their inquisitiveness makes me want to go and teach them, and push them harder. I love the instant feedback I get from my students about my
Transforming A Tense Relationship Where There Is Low Respect Inspiration by Joel Wagner - November 2, 2007July 5, 20104 Recently, a reader wrote to me saying: I am currently midway through student teaching and am struggling with classroom management (surprise!). I am not really getting any feedback from my cooperating teacher, other than "use short, quick redirects" and "your emotions are too transparent to students". I worked in business for 18 years prior to this experience and I'm just struggling with how to try and turn a tense situation around. I have read through the articles posted on this site and they have given me some good ideas to work with. Here is my question: What can you do to turn around a tense relationship with students who do not regard you as "the
Less Stress: Deepen Your Relationships With Students Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 24, 2007June 13, 20122 Wow. I love my students. I am amazed that I haven't written more on my blog about this fact. As I search through my blog, I have come to the realization that I probably come across as some heartless disciplinarian who expects nothing more from his students than that they be quiet all the time. This is about as far from the truth as you can get. In fact, I love my students very much. I came to the determination three years ago that classroom management was a key element of demonstrating my love to them. You see, when we allow them to waste their education, we are showing unconcern for them rather than courtesy. One of my key scriptures as
5 Ways To Win When Children Test Your Limits Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - October 20, 2007July 5, 20107 I'm taking a break today from my Stress Reduction series and getting back to some real teaching issues. That's why we're here anyway, right? So August and September have come and gone with great behavior. Now the students are beginning to do a lot more testing of the limits. It's been a while since I have taught 7th & 8th graders and now I remember how much they like to get away with. Even the good students do things from time to time that just boggle my mind. WHY DID YOU DO THAT? It's crazy. How do I handle these misbehaving miscreants? Stick to your rules Consistency is the only way for success in this area. Just because
A Recipe For Less Stress Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - September 29, 2007July 5, 20100 In preparing for my month-long series on 25 Tips For Less Stress, I realized that I left out a few key ingredients. If you follow all 25 tips listed, and leave out the foundational ingredients, you will still be under intense stress. If you follow the tips with little success, you may actually be under more stress at trying to figure out why they don't accomplish their goal! So today, we will look at the very first and most essential elements of a stress-free classroom. I have written on each of these issues at great depth previously. Below each ingredient are links to four of my articles that address this very issue. I also went to Google's cool Blog
My Education Background Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 22, 2007July 5, 20100 A long time ago, I was tagged by Miss A. I have some free time this morning as I get ready to go out of town with the HS band, so I thought I'd get around to this thing here... Is School 2.0 about technology or pedagogy (teaching methods)? Though I am not terribly familiar with the concept of School 2.0, it looks to be primarily about technology. Of course, I am not a big fan of new "teaching methods" and so anything that purports to be a new "teaching method" automatically raises a red flag for me. What were 1-3 things you had to”unlearn” to become an effective teacher? Wow, great question here. Don't try to
Calling Home Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 14, 2007July 5, 20102 I just recently read NYC Educator's article entitled, Startup Tips. Great stuff there. Neither she nor any teacher of education ever advised me on classroom control. The standing platitude was “A good lesson plan is the best way to control a class,” but I no longer believe that. I think a good lesson plan is the best thing to have after you control the class. ... The best trick, and it’s not much of a trick at all, is frequent home contact. It’s true that not all parents will be helpful, but I’ve found most of them to be. When kids know reports of their classroom behavior will reach their homes, they tend to save the acting out for your
5 Surefire Tips For Handling Misbehavior Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 12, 2007July 5, 201019 Laniza over at Walk Tall has posed the question, how do you handle students who continually test the rules? She writes: I have about 3-4 students in each of my classes that I'm going to have to keep a tight leash on, at least for the first couple of months. My response is that I find warnings basically give the kids a free pass to misbehave once before getting in trouble. I give a warning at the beginning of the year and from then on, any misbehavior is fair game to punishment. When I first was learning how to do it, I would have the kids call home and tell whoever answered the phone what they did. I learned quickly
Are You Still Out Of Control In Your Classroom? [VIDEO] Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 9, 2007June 16, 20162 I know some people who seem to have been born with an innate ability to get others to do things they really don't want to do. Those people, when asked how to do that, generally don't have an explanation. For them it is a natural skill. This isn't the case with most people. It is definitely not the case with me. I admit, it was never this bad for me, but it was bad. I had students talking back. I had students getting out of their seats. I had students writing notes. I'm sure if it were now, I would have had students sending texts throughout the class.I had to learn how to keep them quiet and get them to do