All content at Teaching Equals by Nathan and Julia is licensed under a Creative Commons License. 
Teaching equals a lot of things for different people: jobs, boredom, indoctrination, and a disaster. For us it is our life. Our names are Nathan and Julia, and we are both new teachers. We thought it would be a good idea to journal our experiences and insights.
I'm studying classroom discipline and management for my master's class. So far it's been really helpful. I've learned several new things that have been very useful in the classroom. We are currently looking at various discipline models and the philosophies of dealing with student behavior. I am frustrated by the models I'm finding available. Each seem to have their faults, and they send my brain reeling into philosophical arguments on the benefits of different methods. I thought I'd take a minute to express these observations I've made. Consider this an ongoing observation of discipline. I may revisit this topic again...
Objective, standard, goal, benchmark, target, added progress, and on and on and on... Wow, what an amazingly useful set of words that get beat to death! They're dead to me, Don Vito style. I began my first class in my Master of Art in Teaching program last week. It was all a bit overwhelming at first. There are these magical acronyms that are used for everything, that for the uninitiated are completely baffling. Once I had a little more time to catch up to my thoughts, I began reflecting on what was said in class. I was absolutely amazed at some...
Holy cow I love snow days! Especially since my school system builds days in to our schedule. Can you say free day? If you happen to live in an area of the country that gets some snow but not a tremendous amount, you truly know what I mean by a snow day. It's that magical moment of looking out the window and seeing just enough snow to stop the buses from running. We're not talking about snow that covers your car and keeps you from opening the front door. The type of snow I'm talking about is the kind that you...
Well, its Christmas Break still (excuse me while I do a little dance). I have finished my first semester of teaching. Over the past three weeks I have been pondering on what I can do differently in this new semester to help my students - or rather prevent myself from killing them. I'm already prepared to inform all of my new and returning students about my new expectations this semester: they should bow down to me! Just kidding. I teach a freshmen algebra class first thing in the morning. Yeah it's as bad as you're thinking. However, this class is close to...
I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that you have to be a little bit crazy to teach. From being called an asshole to cleaning up chewing tobacco out of my sinks, there have been days. Oh yes, there have been days! At times I think they're all out to get me. Sometimes it's just a matter of counting down the minutes to 3 o'clock. Luckily it's not always that bad. Actually the majority of time things are fun in the classroom. So much of my experience thus far has been working to just survive. From the impossibly complicated task of keeping up...
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All content at Teaching Equals by Nathan and Julia is licensed under a Creative Commons License.