10 Mistakes New Teachers Make (And How To Avoid Them) New Teachers by Joel Wagner - August 8, 2016February 6, 202025 If you're anything like me, you gained a great deal of academic knowledge about your content area in college and very little actual knowledge about getting students to stay quiet long enough to learn from your abundant knowledge base. Over the years, I have observed young teachers enter the profession and make many of the same mistakes. I have compiled a list of 10 mistakes new teachers make. Nobody makes all of the mistakes, but invariably we all go through a few of them within our first few years of teaching. Mistake 1: Many new teachers try to be "the cool teacher" and end up being "the pushover" I get it. We all want to be liked by our students. The mistake many teachers make is that they
10 Steps For Interview Success [INFOGRAPHIC] New Teachers by Joel Wagner - June 24, 2016July 5, 20160 Summertime is in full swing. That means that many new teachers search for their first job, and many more experienced teachers look for a new job. The interview is an inevitable part of the job hunt. For many pre-service teachers, a teaching job interview is the first real job interview they have ever had. But interviews often lead to rejection. The good news is you only need one interview success. Nowadays, numerous resources are available to help make sure the interview goes well. Unfortunately, few of them seem to be geared specifically toward teachers. Tradewind Recruitment is one company whose focus is helping teachers find jobs. They have put together a nice infographic to help guide you through the process. If you happen to be in the United Kingdom, you may want to check out
50 Things Every First Year Teacher Should Know New Teachers by Joel Wagner - September 2, 2012August 6, 20173 The first year teacher is often a very lonely and isolated person. They often feel like everyone else has everything already figured out, and they are the only one struggling. That is not the case. In fact, so many of us are in survival mode and dealing with our own issues that we forget to help the first year teachers out. Below is a list of 50 things I picked up in my first 10 years of teaching that can hopefully help you through some of those lonely times. I am in my 11th year of teaching now. Where did the time go? One of the top search results that sends people to this blog is "First Year Teacher" so I thought that
10 Years of Teaching: How Do I Keep My School Administration Happy? General by Joel Wagner - June 12, 2012July 1, 20160 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 School Administration Happy? 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 of Teaching:
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
The Art of Teaching Beginning Band Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 5, 2008August 4, 201625 Greg recently commented on an article my site. As I typically do, I went to look at his blog Total Music Education and see what he's all about. His blog intrigues me. I didn't have time to read through his entire site, but what I can gather is that he is a music education student in Minnesota. He's still in school but is getting an opportunity to teach a local summer band camp. With the exception of his observation of the horn section in the camp, I haven't found anything on his blog that is offensive. Haha. Nevertheless, reading some of his experiences helped remind me how differently I see teaching beginning band now than I did when I was first starting
Look Who’s Talking Now! General by Joel Wagner - April 7, 2008July 2, 20103 April is already shaping up to be a record-setting month for So You Want To Teach? We are well on our way to seeing 16,000 visitors or more this month. I am way behind on emails. Please forgive me! I am way behind on comments. I am way behind on reading other blogs. UIL is this Thursday. After that, things begin to resume some remote semblance or normalcy. Please don't expect me to begin catching up until Friday. The comments are taking off on here! I want to consider starting up a message forum and really transforming this site into a wealth of knowledge for teachers. I especially want to help out my new and prospective teacher buddies. According to
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: Play At Work Stress Reduction by Joel Wagner - November 2, 2007July 5, 20100 We come now to the final chapter of our 25 Tips For Less Stress. This is perhaps my favorite one of all. Without this decision, you cannot have a stress-free life. The key is to choose to have fun at work. No matter what industry you work in, if you love your job, you will be more productive. In education, our products are educated people. The more we love teaching, the more of our children will be successful. That love will translate into their development of greater passion for learning. It's an upward spiral. Conversely, when we hate our job -- or when we just show up to collect the paycheck -- it also shows. The students laboriously come to
Habit 3: Relationship Habits Personal by Joel Wagner - July 11, 2007July 5, 20100 This is the third in a series of articles entitled 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. Relationship Procedures In teaching, as in most any businesses -- and life in general -- relationships will either make you successful, or else make you fail. Our relationships spring ultimately from the first habit; our ability to communicate well. But good communication skills alone are not enough to establish powerful relationships. There are more important elements. Here is where again I point out the important role that reading How To Win Friends And Influence People has played in my life. Outstanding book. While on the subject of 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers, I felt it important to once again go over some
4 Ways To Effectively Deal With Important People Personal by Joel Wagner - April 22, 2007March 13, 20144 If work just isn't seeming to work out for you, maybe you are focusing your attention in the wrong place. Here is a list of the people in the educational world of your school who should get the most attention. Students Parents Secretaries Assistant Principal(s) Principal Counselors Other Teachers In Your Department Custodians The Rest Of The Teachers So how do we do this? Here are four areas that I have had success focusing on. Develop basic social skills Much of what I have learned about social interaction was learned when I was 21 years old and read How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Trent from The Simple Dollar covers 9 social skills to practice here. These are priceless and really should be common sense. But as Dave Ramsey points