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Recently, someone told me that he had nightmares about triangles. As a former music teacher, I was really unsure why anyone would ever think about triangles so much that triangles were plaguing this person’s sleep. It occurred to me, however, that I sometimes think about music so much that my sleep is plagued with worry about perfectly analyzed tone rows. If I get music anxiety and I’m a music teacher, then it shouldn’t sound so weird that a person with math anxiety could have nightmares about triangles.
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Every teacher knows that Rule #1 of running your classroom is to ensure that your students feel safe in their learning environment. Schools today aren’t the little slivers of utopia that they were once upon a time, when discipline problems were rare and abruptly handled. If we look at the schools of today through our “Negative Nancy” lenses, some might see bullies, repeat offenders of the school handbook, and, even, petty criminals lurking around every corner. What can a teacher do to foster a safer learning environment?
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Let’s face it: your classroom behavior management plan is not as successful as you dreamed it would be. You meticulously slaved over developing and implementing a foolproof behavior management plan, yet your students somehow found the loophole. It’s a little embarrassing to admit it, but 25 fourth graders proved that you are the only fool in this “foolproof” behavior management plan.
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As teachers, we can whine until the cows come home about “kids these days” and their general bad behavior. It’s so easy to shake our fists and exclaim, “Why aren’t parents teaching their kids to behave?” Teachers will go bonkers if they devote more energy to being frustrated about student behavior rather than being optimistic and pro-active about helping students to be better people.
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Any teacher will tell you that a surefire way of stirring up trouble with an educator involves remarking, “Must be nice to not work during the summer.” While summertime might mean that “the livin’ is easy” for some, most teachers find the summertime just as busy as the school year. Students might not be in the classroom, but teachers are often busy with professional development, conferences, trainings and other activities to improve their skills in preparation for the upcoming school year. Continue Reading...
“Withitness”: Being Aware of What’s Going on in the Classroom
posted by: Larisa | June 13, 2012, 02:26 PM
In the battle of classroom management versus teacher sanity, it is imperative that every teacher makes use of his/her inherent sense of awareness. While these self-examining “superpowers” aren’t exactly the powers of the Incredible Hulk or Spiderman, they are powerful enough to manage the classroom on the most hectic of days. This suite of abilities is what educators refer to as “withitness.”
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According to a recent survey comparing the overall health and well-being of eleven different professions, teachers were ranked the highest in terms of overall quality of life. The distinguishing factor that helped to give teachers the happiness edge appears to be rooted in perspective – teachers regard their job as a “calling” and not just a gig that pays the bills. Continue Reading...According to the most recent population survey released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the teaching gender gap is still alive and well. Male educators constitute just 2.3% of pre-K and kindergarten teachers, 18.3% of the elementary and middle school teacher population, and 42% of the high school level teaching staff. These numbers are down from 2007, but suggest a clear female majority in the teaching profession, especially in the earlier grades. Continue Reading...You leave your house, coffee in hand, and it starts to rain outside. You don’t have an umbrella. You rush to your car, and, in a dash to save your freshly graded papers from rain damage, you put your coffee cup on the top of your car as you unlock the door. You hop in the car, start the ignition, and, just as you pull away, you hear the clunk of your coffee cup hitting the sidewalk. It’s going to be one of those days. Continue Reading...According to a report released by education nonprofit Project Tomorrow, teachers are more likely to use personal mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers, than the general public. While 64% of principals and 54% of teachers have regular personal access to mobile devices, only 40% of the general public has access to personal mobile devices according to the data. Continue Reading...
Being a good music educator requires more than just teaching the notes on a page. Music is a subject that is likely to be labeled as “old school” because – let’s face it – playing the violin does not involve a username or password. In this age of MP3 players and online radio, music educators are finding great ways to engage music students by bringing technology into the classroom. Music educators have a wealth of information available to them on the internet to help keep the music classroom on the “cutting edge.”
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>> Originally posted by Jill on the AAE Blog:I was teaching on September 11, 2001 when the Towers fell. In fact, my student's brother worked at the Twin Towers. (Sidenote: the brother escaped safely from the buildings before it collapsed). It was a long day of teaching. As eighteen and nineteen year-olds, the students wanted to talk about what was happening and it just seemed right to put the current lesson on hold and teach another lesson that day. Considering that we didn't have much information and my iPhone had yet to be invented, there were a lot of questions unanswered.
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