Posts containing the following tags:
new teachers

Earlier in the week our principal sent out an email to the faculty to apprise us that next year we will have a new football coach. The email contained a paragraph biography of the new coach, including where he attended college, degrees he holds, and where he currently coaches. Today, our principal sent an email to [...]

1. Avoid the staff lounge. After all, they are the ''lounge lizards'' who will steal your soul faster than a Death Eater, right?  Not exactly.  Maybe I'm just an awful teacher or perhaps inherently codependent, but fellow teachers have saved my career, given me great ideas and forced me to be less of a perfectionist. Yes, there is ...

You should read the book Best Year Ever! Winning Strategies to Thrive in Today's Classroom by Bill Cecil. It is a great classroom management book that has a four step plan to help you build your class into a winning team. It also has a 30 Day Planner with lesson plans to help build your team in the first 30 days. It will make a difference!

As a new teacher it can be overwhelming walking into that blank classroom trying to figure out where everything goes. Here are 6 tips to help get you started and make the beginning of school a little easier. Tip #1: Take an inventory. Look at the furniture you have to work with. Make a list. Do you have enough chairs, bookcases, desks? Think ...

I'm giving this blog a short, two-month sabbatical for two reasons.  First, I am running out of relevant ideas and I want to rethink some metaphors, technology and paradigm shifts.  I want to figure out what Philisophical Friday should be and how it can be a little more personal and practical.  I realize how quickly blogging can get stagnant and I ...

I remember being in my first year and feeling lost.  I wanted to have some advice, but I quickly found that there was too much advice and not enough of it fit my own personality.  People would say things like, ''Wear a shirt and tie everyday.''  One person told me, ''Color code the post-it notes.'' At the same time, the good advice saved my life. ...

Joel, thanks for letting us write a guest post on your blog. This site is a great source for educators who want meaningful information with a down-to-earth touch.    For Joel’s regular readers, thanks for taking your time time to read this post. I want to start out by asking you a simple question: Do you know [...]

When I first started out, I was living by myself far away from home. I didn’t have any friends in the community outside of the school. And those were either other band directors or band parents. I didn’t do anything to really try to keep in contact with college friends, I sort of had the Lone Ranger type approach. That was way back in ...

So I was looking for some new ideas for my second graders on the web the other day… A lot of the materials we have at our school are getting outdated, and I was just looking for something fresh. Anyways, I found this website called http://www.biceveryday.com/. Believe it or not, it is actually a great resource for teachers, students, and all ...

My Twitter friend @MissCalcul8 recently posted on her blog soliciting help from her readers about how to prepare for her first year as an official teacher. She has been subbing some this year. I thought it was a great question, so I wanted to post my responses here as well as send you over to her [...]