What To Do When You Hate Teaching Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - September 3, 2012August 4, 20166 Disillusionment is common to most of us involved in the teaching profession. We all deal with it at one point or another. But what do you do when you hate teaching? From dream to reality Here's the general path many of us take: You major in education because you want to change the world You realize that in order to teach, you need a find a job You go through disappointing interview after disappointing interview and are told if you had more experience, you would be perfect for the job You get frustrated that the only way to get experience is to get the job they won't give you because you don't have experience Some school district that was not your first
10 Design Changes I Did To My WordPress Blog This Month Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - June 28, 2010June 30, 20100 If you haven't stopped by the actual website for So You Want To Teach? in a few months, er weeks, er days, er hours, you may not recognize it. I have used my summertime to really put in some solid effort into adjusting the layout of the blog. I haven't done a full-on redesign since March of 2009. Since that time, I've added a few widgets here and something else over there, but never really spent a lot of concentrated time really thinking about the layout of the blog. Until recently. How it all began Quite frankly, I got bored of looking at the blog each day. I had some stuff there that just really didn't make sense. It was more cluttered
Can Wii Do It? Personal by Joel Wagner - January 4, 2010June 30, 20100 Carol Richtsmeier made me do it. She has pretty much shamed me (guilted me perhaps?) into blogging through my weight loss this year with her. I'm doing it because I want to run a 5K. She's doing it because she's tired of dragging along the extra baggage. Well, me too. She's done all of the legwork and I'll do some design work when I get a chance, but she's set up a blog call Can Wii Do It? to track our progress. I suggested there might be others who would be interested in blogging through their journey (either with a Wii or without). If you are, she would probably be the person to contact since she's doing most of the
45 Tasks for Parent Volunteers in the Classroom General by Michelle Fabio - May 27, 2009August 9, 20164 Parent volunteers in the classroom can be great resources for both students and teachers, but it's important to make sure your volunteers have plenty of do so they feel like they're helping and want to come back. If you'll be accepting parents as classroom volunteers, be sure to ask them what they'd like to do and what they'd rather not do -- not every parent is crafty or feels comfortable reading with children. Also be sure to ask what times are convenient for them, making it more likely they'll become regular helpers in your classroom. And don't forget to show your appreciation at the end of the year! Many teachers hold volunteer teas or breakfasts or give small gifts like gift cards or framed
No Rights Reserved Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - April 26, 2009June 30, 20109 This blog is about sharing ideas. The ideas and conversation are far more important than me personally. For that reason, you are hereby free to take any articles or comments that I (Joel) personally have produced for So You Want To Teach?and use them in whatever way you so desire! Call it Open Source Blogging, call it Uncopyright, call it Public Domain. I call it No Rights Reserved. Absolutely. Unequivocally. If you want to take an entire article, or even a series of articles, and publish them in a book, magazine, newsletter, newspaper, ebook, or whatever else (edited or unedited), go for it. Let the information flow! What if I want to sell [insert witty clever teachery item]? Feel free to find one
Spring Break Is Here…What to Do, What to Do… Music Education by Joel Wagner - March 18, 2009June 30, 20105 Well, I'm sitting here in a motel room in San Antonio. I am trading some of my time with a band director friend. I came here to teach trumpet and horn sectionals yesterday since I'm on spring break this week and he had it last week. In turn, he's going to come in next week and clinic my band. Basically what that means is that he's going to rehearse them for two hours and tell them stuff they can do to make it better. It also gives me a chance to step back and listen more closely. When I'm conducting and everything, I hear things, but not everything. This is why I record my band regularly. As an aside, if you
Classroom Out of Control? JD2718 Has Some Great Comments Classroom Management by Joel Wagner - February 1, 2009June 30, 20101 Okay okay. So I'm a band director. Why would anyone listen to me anyway. I'm just an elective teacher. My friend JD2718 emailed me and told me about some stuff that he does in his math class. So even if you ignore my advice about classroom management, maybe some of his advice about keeping students engaged will apply to you. Hop on over and check out Teaching off topic 3. By the way, I have ADD so my kids know that if they ask me a question about my dogs or what I did over the weekend or pretty much anything else, I'll get off topic. But even when I do stay focused, I find ways to bring some off-topic
5 Things To Do While Taking A Break General by Joel Wagner - May 19, 2008July 1, 20103 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 the year approaching, I am so busy with school and concerts and trips and contests and planning and everything else that goes along with it. In addition, I am playing trumpet in a mariachi now, so that is starting to require individual practice time as well as rehearsals and gigs. Plus, I have been doing quite a bit of preaching in church lately too. So
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
The Blog Revolution: Day 3 – Keep ’em Coming Back Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - May 7, 2008July 2, 20102 As we continue the Blog Revolution Project, we come to day three of our focus on writing. Today will look at one of the best ways to keep readers coming back each day. It also happens to be one of the best ways to bring in traffic much further down the road. We'll focus on the art of the series. Just as we looked at how writing lists can be very popular on Monday, another great way to encourage traffic to return is to write lists, but extend them over a period of a few days or even a few weeks. Essentially writing lists of articles, or a series. Some of the pivotal points in this blog's history have revolved
The State of the Blog 03/30/08 Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 30, 2008July 2, 20105 Wow, it has been over five months since I have done this kind of thing. I've written some informal blog updates from time to time, but nothing formalized like this. I have noticed that So You Want To Teach? seems to be entering a new phase of its life and want to ask you for some help. There's also a completely unrelated video at the end. But first, the latest blogging news from SYWTT. I revamped my Links page today and only put those blogs that had commented or emailed me back in January. Keep reading for info on how to get your link added there. We reached 100 subscribers for the first time on November 15th. We reached
Anxiety Sets In As The New School Year Looms Ominously Close General by Joel Wagner - August 11, 2007June 25, 20160 The new school year is two weeks and two days away. This time last year, our week of inservices was well under way. Thanks to the Texas legislature, we will not begin staff development until August 20th and are not allowed to begin school before August 27th. That's fine with me, but I am ready to begin the school year. We started our middle school band camp this past Monday and it is so much fun there. As I've mentioned before, these are students that I taught in 6th grade. I am moving from the sixth grade campus to the 7th & 8th grade campus this year. It's so much fun for me to see all of these kids whom I