On NPR today, I listened to a story about a horse whisperer.  He described the way he began as a horse trainer.  He used two-by-fours in order to ''break the will'' of the horse.  Often, the success seemed immediate, but a few horses would refuse to conform.  One ran away.  Another nearly killed him.  Still, he ...

I stopped by today — the first time I’ve ever been to my classroom in the middle of summer, and all my furniture was piled up in the hall by my cubbies.  I went inside and it was completely empty, except for all the dust bunnies.  And the tech guy who is currently installing my videodata [...]

A few months ago, while at a lesson waiting on my kid, I started chatting with another parent. He told me all about his son’s ADHD, and commented that “women teachers just don’t know how to teach boys.” I’ve been thinking about that ever since. A few years ago, I had a four year [...]

Just in time for March Madness Watch this video Read this article Being a Middle-Aged Nerd is No Excuse for Stupid What did you just learn? How can you relate it to classroom management? Also, I want to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the new “Rate this article” thing at the top of each article now. Go ahead ...

On February 11th, 2007 I wrote the first blog post that is included in the archives of So You Want To Teach? I didn ‘t actually set up the blog on this domain until June, but I thought that since the blog was now over a year old (at least as far as some of the content), I’d go back and take a look at some of the old stuff. By the way, ...

Newby writes: I have noticed lately in a couple of your posts you mentioned how terrible your first couple of years of teaching were. As a new reader, I have gone back into your archived information to learn more about this blog but have not come across why you had such a hard time. What made your first years so difficult? As a teacher with ...

Lately, I have noticed a larger number of prospective and newer teachers leaving comments to my various articles. This has helped inspire me to offer what advice I can in a (hopefully) weekly question and answer forum. For lack of creativity, we’ll call it “Ask Joel” and begin next week. Any question is fair game, whether ...

I have fallen behind on the blog lately, but that is because I am actually trying to move forward some more in my personal life. Sometimes sacrifices are necessary parts of progress. I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few of the great comments that I have received lately. I am interested in hearing more about how some of you run ...

The common classroom management wisdom we all hear is, “Don’t smile before Christmas.” I believe that advice is good advice when taken metaphorically. If taken directly as written, it is about the worst advice you can follow. Good advice In the middle of my fourth semester of teaching, when I was learning how to really get a ...

Welcome to the 148th edition of the Carnival of Education! As is one of my signature styles, I want to present this carnival in list format. We’ll begin with a Top 5 list… The Main Attraction Obviously the process of creating any “Top 5″ list is subjective and open to argument and debate. With nearly50 submissions, I [...]