Words Inspiration by Joel Wagner - August 15, 2010August 15, 20100 I just listened to a recent podcast of Radiolab entitled Words. They included a bonus video along with the podcast. Powerful images and sounds here. The video is below. If you haven't listened to Radiolab, now is a great time to start. As I approach my ninth year of teaching, I have begun to wonder about the effectiveness of my classroom management plan. A brief summaryWhen I first started out, I allowed way too much stuff to go on. In the middle of my second year, I cracked down like nobody's business and began what I might term my "dictator days". Basically, I was a bully and made sure I was in charge of my classroom. I still wholeheartedly believe
Don’t Quit Teaching… Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - July 24, 20104 Don't quit teaching. It could be that every single struggle you've ever faced as a teacher has been leading you to an amazing breakthrough that will happen this year. Make it happen!There may come a time in your life when you just get burned out from teaching or you come to realize that teaching people is not your gift. I won't argue with you, but I do want to encourage you to stick with it. It's a common desire, and I think that all educators have flirted with the idea of, packing the bags and moving to Argentina just to escape our chosen profession. Or maybe that's just me. But whatever the case, now is not the time!FearI'm not a
Do What You Can General by Joel Wagner - April 15, 2010June 30, 20103 This year has been one of learning for me. Physical activity has been a struggle for me for years, and so in January when I decided I would set out to run a 5K this spring, it was a shock to pretty much everyone who knows me. The thing that has most intrigued me has been how much I have learned about life just from this one decision. I intend to spend the summer writing about these topics quite a bit. I also plan to dig into some of the other series that I began on the blog and for whatever reason never completed. Needless to say, I have a good bit of reading and writing that I will be
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"
Standardized Reading Testing General by Joel Wagner - March 15, 2009June 30, 20106 I have a very simple question for the language arts teachers out there. A little background first When I was in school and took the TAAS reading exams (as well as the SAT), I quickly discovered that I am a fairly slow reader. I also don't get a lot of the specific details when I read a passage. I have since worked on developing that skill and have made some definite progress. What I learned worked best for me was to read the questions before I read the specific passages. This way I could skim through the assigned passages and know what I was looking for. Sometimes the questions were so specific that they didn't require any reading of the
Reader Appreciation 2008: David Warlick Reader Appreciation by Joel Wagner - November 3, 2008July 1, 20102 November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year's focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There's still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question: What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching? Today's response is from David Warlick, the author of the wildly popular 2¢ Worth. It is important to note that when I interviewed for my first teaching job and was offered the position, I didn't know that I had been interviewing for a Math vacancy, and they didn't know that they has been interviewing a Social Studies teacher. I accepted the job, however, and proceeded to have
The Blog Revolution: Day 4 – Develop Your Writing Voice Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 8, 2008July 2, 20101 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day four of our focus on writing. Today's article will focus on crafting your own personal style, develop your writing voice. Newer bloggers may have a struggle with figuring out exactly what approach they want to take with their blog. Think of your writing voice as your brand name. Lea Schizas has written some on this topic at Writing with Passion and Developing Your Voice and Brand Some common questions may include: How do I want to attack each post? What kind of a tone should I assume? What kind of audience should I expect? These are all normal. Let's look at these three questions a little bit
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