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, … Read more
This school year is turning out to be pretty crazy in a lot of ways. I’m now in my ninth year of teaching and am working firsthand with a third year teacher on a regular basis teaching 6th grade beginner band. I also have the opportunity to work alongside a first year strings teacher, a … Read more
On the day that the iPhone 3G was released, I rushed out to the local AT&T Store to pick up my very own. I was excited, so I rushed home and wrote 10 Awesome iPhone Apps (Band Director Style) and listed all of the cool things that I was going to download and use in … Read more
This summer has been the best summer of my teaching career so far. Unfortunately for you, I haven’t blogged about it a whole lot. As I get back into the routine of things a little bit more, I will have some more time and energy to begin writing about some of the things that I … Read more
It all started innocently enough. As a band director, I have been to numerous rehearsals of orchestras, jazz bands, mariachis, bands, and even choirs. So when Mr. Teacher (of www.learnmegood.com) asked me if I wanted to join him for choir practice, I was excited. “Well, I was just watching these 100 Free Online Lectures that … Read more
My band sounds good. My band behaves very very well. My band is going to be great this year. This comes as the result of 6 years of learning from my mistakes. It wasn’t always that way. When I got them in August, I didn’t know how it was going to work out. They didn’t … Read more
There come times in life when we need to find something to do. There come times in life when we need a break. There come times in life when we need to cut back some things so we can find that perfect place. This is one of those times for me. With the end of … Read more
My life has changed quite a bit since December 1st. Today, I want to look back on some of the things that have happened in the life of this blog, as well as some things that have happened in the life of Joel. Blogging changes The number of readers continues to climb (164 as of … Read more