Weekend Wrapup 09/03/07 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - September 3, 2007July 5, 20100 Labor Day edition. It's raining. I'm catching up on housework. And falling WAY behind on blogs. I am going to trim my RSS subscriptions this week so I can get through them more quickly. I hate it when Google Reader says I have 100+ articles to read every day. Life is too short to squander it all online. I have fallen out of touch with other bloggers because of time commitments. What I'm going to do with today's wrapup is send you to some friends around the web. Leave comments on their blogs. I find that leaving good comments on other blogs really helps out my blog as well. With this being said, I have turned comments off for this
What My Classroom Is Really Like Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - August 30, 2007July 5, 20102 I realized something this week. As I start my sixth year of teaching, I finally have an amazing level of confidence when going into ANY group of students and knowing that I will be able to get them to be quiet and follow whatever directions I give them. I have been absolutely thrilled with my classes this week. So I thought that I would describe what goes on and see if maybe I can shed some light on WHY those things happen. Someone will be in control When my dad was getting his degree in education a few years ago, he passed along a story to me about one of his college classes. In the discussion, he said something that
Weekend Wrapup 08/13/07 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - August 13, 2007July 5, 20102 Another week begins. Now that Summer Band is in full swing, I am reminded how difficult and full my schedule is during the fall. My blogging will come when it comes. :) Now on with the wrapup... CaliforniaTeacherGuy has accepted a position in Small Desert Town. He recently received a letter from the superintendent. One of the huge advantages to a small district is that the administration is more involved. I once interviewed in a district where the principal taught history, and the superintendent taught math. He actually came into the interview when he reached a break from mowing the football field! If you get in today or early tomorrow, My Education Junction has a contest. I realize that by
How To Polish Your Resume To Rack Up Job Interviews General by Joel Wagner - July 16, 2007June 19, 20160 Polishing The Resume So you have just graduated from college and ready to enter the teaching field. Or maybe you are in the midst of your final days, weeks, or months of college education and want to know where to start. Or maybe you are simply looking for greener pastures. The deal is, nobody gets a job unless they first have a job interview. That's pretty obvious, right? So how do you get a job interview? There are a few ways, but the focus for today will be getting out the old resume and preparing to be interview bait. Some sticking points to remember are that everybody else applying for the job has a resume also. Yours has to jump out of
8 Steps To Building A Better Blog Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - July 15, 2007July 5, 20102 This really has nothing to do with education. I wanted to take a chance to stop and address some things that happened this week in my life and the life of this blog. Every day in the past week except for Tuesday, So You Want To Teach? saw more than 50 visitors. It's not like that constitutes a high-traffic blog or anything, but I see healthy, steady growth and want to look at some of the things that I have done to see this growth. Add content I started the blog in February, but only posted three articles a month until we got to the last week of May. Those articles are pretty good and help to form the
More Links: Wednesday Website #3 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - July 11, 2007July 5, 20101 Wow. Today seems like Link To SoYouWantToTeach day in the blog world. Maybe I really should go on vacation more often! Eric Turner has featured my site as his Wedneday Website #3 for the week. Some of his comments include: First of all, the blog is written by a guy! Finally! A edublog written by a guy! I try. I like this guy cause he is posting some genuinely good stuff for teachers (or future teachers). Additionally, he has done everything possible to help you navigate his website; directing you to the posts you should read first and then elsewhere and such. When I first went on it, I felt like I was on a road map, it was that
Pay Attention [VIDEO] General by Joel Wagner - July 4, 2007July 5, 20100 This is one of the most powerful presentations I've seen that pertains to education. If you are interested in being a better teacher, you cannot miss this. It's an awesome presentation on integrating technology into virtually everything that we do in education.Not only is it beautiful from a presentation standpoint (clean, uncluttered, visually pleasing), but it is also beautiful from the standpoint of what it says and how it can completely change your paradigm. Be sure to watch the next video entitled Did You Know? as well. The two of them together can be revolutionary for education.
Is Education Really That Important? (Part 2) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - June 25, 2007July 5, 20103 After my first post this morning, I realized that I actually met a few high school dropouts yesterday. One was mentioned in the previous post. On the flip side were two other young ladies I had lunch with. These women were 22 and 29 years old. One finished 11th grade and the other was kicked out of school after assaulting a teacher and principal in 8th grade. Both of them met while living in a rehabilitation type home run by people from a local church. Admittedly, they grew up in the inner city, while the other young lady grew up in a South Texas Border Town. Environment was different from that standpoint. But demographically, they would all be listed the
Is Education Really That Important? (Part 1) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - June 25, 2007July 5, 20102 I met a high school dropout yesterday. We talked for something like an hour and a half or two hours. It was very revealing and confirms a lot of my thoughts about education. Beware as you read this. If you're comfortable thinking that everyone needs to go to school, get a degree, and get a safe secure job, then this article will challenge you. She is 17 years old. She came to my door to talk with me about switching my electricity provider. I have been thinking of doing the same thing anyway, and the rates are lower than my current provider. The reason I haven't is because my landlord's name is on the bill and I didn't want to
9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick) Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - June 18, 2007August 9, 201679 Life as a teacher can be awfully challenging. While the challenges change as we gain experience, there are always new ones. It can be an awfully lonely time for many teachers. This article looks at 9 reasons to quit teaching and also raises 10 reasons to stick with teaching. Think of the many reasons you have to quit teaching Bad students Bad administrators Bad curriculum Too much paperwork Too much negativity Too much responsibility Not enough time Not enough credit Not enough PAY Face it, you are not as good of a teacher as you could be. You're not living up to your potential. Nobody is. Where am I? Seth Godin says that you are in The Dip (What's The Dip?). This is that place
Where Have All The Good Teachers Gone? Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - June 17, 2007July 5, 20109 There is a dearth of good teachers throughout the world. And I'm not just talking about those of us who make a living working with kids in schools, either. Teachers are everywhere. Bad teachers are almost everywhere. Great teachers are exceedingly difficult to find. That is why we, as potentially great teachers, need to seek out those teachers who have figured it out. To seek out great educators who truly aspire to inspire. John Carlton writes in his blog: I found ONE teacher who actually taught me something as a young man coming out of the public school system. I could’ve easily lumped her in with all the others who’d wasted my time… but I’m damned lucky I allowed her
Be The Best Teacher In The World Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 19, 2007June 19, 20164 Dave Ramsey recently wrote an article entitled High-Performance Achievement and it's about his training to run of a marathon. In this article, we're going to look at how you can use that knowledge to help you become the best teacher in the world. In Seth Godin's latest book, "The Dip" (which I'm going to read this summer), he talks about being the best in the world. That term is defined basically as the best in your sphere of influence at doing what you do. My goal as a band director is to be the best band director in my school district. Then my goal is to have the best band at whatever competition we go to. Then my goal is to have
A Customer Service Oriented Classroom Experience Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - February 24, 2007June 15, 201611 In The Beginning When I was in college, I had an assignment for one of my classes. The assignment was to write up my own philosophy of education. It was somewhat noble ("I teach children to be better people through music" or something like that). It was substantially trite. Most importantly, it lacked any passion behind it. The Interview In my very first teaching job interview, the principal interviewing me asked me what my educational philosophy was. I gave some sort of flimsy answer because I wasn't prepared for the interview. He gave me a chance later on to ask me if I had any questions. I asked him what his educational philosophy was. What he said has stuck with me ever since. He
Classroom Management: The Key To Your Success Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - February 14, 2007July 31, 20160 Above all else that you do in education, classroom management skills will pay greater dividends. I cannot tell you how much more teaching I actually get done now that I have learned how to get and keep children quiet. This one skill was the single thing that prevented me from being useful at all during my first two years as a teacher. This one skill was the single thing that allowed me to be supremely useful in my third year of teaching. No matter what you do, do not underestimate the value of spending time learning and refining classroom management skills. No other educational endeavor will be as fruitful.
5 Keys To Educating People Inspiration by Joel Wagner - February 11, 2007July 25, 20164 A Matter of Priorities During my first two years of teaching, I discovered that I had a whole lot of information, but the students just weren't listening to me or learning from me. It is not, mind you, because I was giving them wrong information. It was, however, because I had placed the priorities in the wrong order. When we have the proper perspective, we will end up teaching far more than we ever imagined we might teach. When I first got into the business of education, my priority was to educate children. So my philosophy could be summarized as: Educate When we have the proper perspective, we will end up teaching far more than we ever imagined we might teach.Not bad, but