10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My Students Learning? General by Joel Wagner - June 10, 2012July 1, 20160 Embed from Getty Images Five years ago, I wrote a series of seven articles called “Questions That Will Save Your Career†that still remain among the most visited articles on this site. When I wrote those, I had successfully completed my 5th year in education. This summer, after 10 years, I am revisiting some of these older concepts. Today, I revisit How Do I Keep My Students Learning? How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? How Do I Keep My Students Engaged? How Do I Keep My Students Interested? How Do I Keep My Students Learning? How Do I Keep My Students Away From Me? How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy? How Do I Keep My Sanity? 10 Years
20 Classic SYWTT Articles And Series General by Joel Wagner - July 2, 2009May 29, 20161 If this is your first time visiting this site, or even if you’ve been reading for a while, there are undoubtedly some articles that you’ve missed along the journey. As I have been working a lot on organizing the site lately, it has come to my attention that there are over 400 posts on the site. This can be kind of daunting for a new reader to say the least. These are some of my favorite articles and series that I’ve written on the site. If you’ve read these, maybe you could check in and respond to a comment or two! Questions That Will Save Your Career Where Have All The Good Teachers Gone? The Best Time To Be A Teacher?
Find A Mentor – Again (Total Teacher Transformation Day 6) Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 8, 2009June 30, 20102 This is an article in the Total Teacher Transformation series. Click here for a complete table of contents. I hope that this series so far has been useful for some of you. I'm not getting an overwhelming amount of feedback specifically on the series, but I guess I really can't complain about over 40 (non-spam) comments in the last week, even if they were not entirely devoted to the Total Teacher Transformation series. I find that it's always nice to get feedback when you are trying to do something important. In thinking about this, I am actually reminded of the early days of my Total Teacher Transformation back 5 years ago. I didn't have anyone there saying, "You're doing a great job"
Survival Kit For Teachers Looking To Relocate Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - April 16, 2009June 19, 20162 Someone left a comment on another article on my blog yesterday that I wanted to address more in-depth with a Survival Kit of sorts to help you find a new teacher job. I posted a teaser this morning to see what kind of responses the community would come up. So far, I have read some incredible (and almost all positive) pointers. I’ve written a great deal about classroom management in the past here I’ve written about how I changed course and overcame a poor history of teaching in March of my second year of teaching I suppose this is sort of a follow-up to The Honeymoon Is Over: What Killed My First Teaching Job And 7 Tips For Getting Your Next Job. In that initial
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
Back To Basics Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - November 24, 2008July 1, 20103 Reader Appreciation Month didn't quite turn out the way I had envisioned it would. That is primarily my fault. As I sit here, I realize there are some things that I used to do with blogging that I don't do any longer. I have decided it's time for me to change some things. You may or may not notice the changes as I begin implementing them. If you do, great. If not, then perhaps it is simply a change to the way I approach blogging. Whatever the case, it'll be good. How can I apply this to my classroom? How many times do we get into the habit of being so familiar with the subject matter that it no longer
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
The Single Most Important Advice Anyone Can Give To A First Year Teacher Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - September 21, 2008July 1, 20109 When I first started out teaching, I desperately wanted the kids to like me. To this end, I ended up letting my classes get out of control. A handful of things contributed to this: Concerning myself with every matter that was brought to my attention Allowing kids to mesbehave Trying to get the kids to like me Yelling at kids Arguing with them So I learned how to get control. If this sounds like something you might have trouble with, I encourage you to check out these articles in this order: You Better Smile Before Christmas! How Do I Keep My Students Quiet? Arguing Is Normal, isn't It? 5 Surefire Tips For Handling Misbehavior Make Love
5 Tips To Putting The Pieces of Your Life Back Together General by Joel Wagner - April 15, 2008July 2, 20104 I recently took my band to the UIL Concert & Sight Reading competition. We worked hard on the music. We worked hard in after school sectionals. We worked hard on passing classes to retain eligibility. The end result was that the band got first division in the Concert portion of the contest, and first division in the Sight Reading portion. That combination is called Sweepstakes. Putting together a performance like this takes its toll on everyone involved. As a result, I have fallen behind on a number of things in my personal life. The most notable is my housekeeping.Since I conduct the second band, it is made up of mostly 7th graders. This was their first year to go to
Change of Pace — Have You Ever…. Personal by Joel Wagner - February 24, 2008July 2, 20104 Idea stolen from Chris Thomas Have you ever: Changed a personal habit? What was it and how did you accomplish it? Lost more than 30 pounds? How did you do it and how did it make you feel? Paid off over $10,000 in debt? What steps did you take and how did the process affect your views of borrowing? Done something you never thought you could do? What and how? Done or said something you regret? What were the circumstances and what did you learn from the process?
5 Blogging Surprises of 2007 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 28, 2007July 2, 20101 This blog has brought some exciting and unexpected things into my life. In this article, I'll discuss some of the biggest surprises that have come about as a result of this. A brief background It was about a year ago that I first began to really get into blogging. I knew of blogs and actually had a few on livejournal and myspace for a few years. I was vaguely aware of RSS back in 2002 when it first came on the scene and began to gain some popularity. I just had never really gotten into the whole blogging thing. I began reading blogs some and started learning. I was inspired. But I still never ventured into the "edublogosphere." In February,
The Busiest Articles of 2007 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - December 26, 2007July 2, 20101 On Sunday, we looked back at some of The Loneliest Articles of 2007, today, we'll go to the other extreme and look at the busiest articles of 2007. These are the articles that generated the most comments. I've gone through the articles and found those that received the most comments. After boiling down that list, I have come up with the 15 most commented articles. 148th Carnival of Education December 5th, 2007 (9 comments by 9 authors, 4 trackbacks) (13) The State of the Blog: 08/01/07 August 1st, 2007 (11 comments by 11 authors) (11) 5 Surefire Tips For Handling Misbehavior September 12th, 2007 (8 comments by 7 authors) (7) The Purpose Of A Personal Mission Statement July 26th,
Less Stress: Reduce Phone Calls Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 17, 2007May 29, 20163 I got an email from one of our secretaries yesterday asking me to call one of the other administrative assistants. The message left no indication of why I should call her. I have not yet called her and I don't intend to do so. I have a problem with phone calls. In a world where email has become a standard of communication at work, phone calls are a mere inconvenience Phone calls pose as important interruptions Often they are unimportant or at the very least delayable. At the worst, they are totally unimportant. Phone calls allow someone else to control our environment. I don't answer the phone during class I made the decision my third year of teaching to never stop to answer the phone
Less Stress: Reduce Paperwork Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 15, 2007May 29, 20160 One of the biggest drains on my energy is paper clutter. One of the biggest drains on the environment is trash. For these reasons, I try to do everything I can digitally rather than with paper. I am so used to having so much paperwork, that I forget what it would be like without it. I went to school to be a band director, not a clerical assistant, but there are entire days where all I do is office work while another director teaches my class. Fundraising, returned progress reports, ARD forms, absence notes, hall passes, schedule change forms, field trip requests, receipts, deposit slips, you name it, I have it. Oh yeah, the students also occasionally turn work in too! Here's
Less Stress: Declutter Your House Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - October 11, 2007July 5, 20101 Well, this is one of my weakest areas. I have my work environment very organized and neat, but my home is not. Part of my problem is that I know what to do and how to do it, I just don't seem to find the energy after working 11-16 hour days to come home and do it. And in the marching season, many of my weekends are taken up traveling out of town to football games and/or marching competitions. During the rest of the school year, I am generally pretty good about it, but still not perfect. Why is a clean home important? Again, the same as a clean desk provides peace of mind, so does a clean home. The goal is to