All content at Teaching Equals by Nathan and Julia is licensed under a Creative Commons License. 
The next best thing since Google. Okay that’s a total lie. Google is way better! We just tell you stories and hope you laugh. You’d probably throw stuff at us instead. Regardless, we hope you find something interesting here…
Whoever said that teaching has to be hard work? Well speaking from experience, it is. You go in early than you're supposed to. Your planning is barely enough to scrape together anything resembling a lesson. You leave later than you're supposed to. Then you work once you're at home. You wake up the next morning having dreamed about tomorrow's lesson. That's a whole lot of work, and the craziest part is that the actual teaching comes second to the work. You know what I'm talking about. Instead of having time to really tutor a student on a concept, you're too busy picking...
So I got to thinking (I know it's amazing news) about how we as teacher spend so much of our time correcting behavior. However, I have never really stopped to think what I'm trying to correct that behavior towards. What I'm saying is that most of the time we know exactly what makes a "bad" kid, but I don't think I've really have sat down to think about what makes a "good" student. Now without degrading into a pointless discussion about the absurdity of dualism, I think that we spend too much time separating students into categories of good and bad....
On my previous post "Stop that...", Shirley Winkle (aka my kid sister's pseudonym) suggested two very thought provoking videos about education. I loved them so much I felt it was worth giving them their own post. First let me preface them by saying that they are absolutely wonderful. I will not pretend to disguise my enthusiasm under layers of objectivity. Not only are they immensely thought provoking, but they are funny. Funny in a way that captures your imagination as well as your laughter. Both of these were found on TED, which I would encourage you to...
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...
All content at Teaching Equals by Nathan and Julia is licensed under a Creative Commons License.