Category: Uncategorized
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10. Be Flexible
Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be bent out of shape. Schools, administrators and teachers all love a good schedule. In fact, you can walk in almost any building and find posted outside every classroom door a carefully planned master matrix of a schedule including the time and duration of every subject, lunch,…
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9. Be Organized.
Be organized. This is hardest for the creative teachers in the building. This is not a real challenge for most people who grow up to become teachers. Their brains are organized and they appreciate calendars, planners and to-do lists. They love a roster and a book with lots of boxes to check off. They thrive…
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8. Teach Children to Genuinely Apologize.
Dozens of times each day, one child you love will offend another child you love with words or actions. Sometimes teachers feel more like referees than educators. If you tell a child to apologize, the perpetrator will turn toward the complainant and bark, “SORRY,” and turn away with a scowl and go tell a friend…
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7. One Rule. Do the Right Thing.
In most every classroom there is a prominently displayed list of rules. Some were created by the class while others were laws laid down by the teacher. It doesn’t really matter who contributed the content, they all involve a whole bunch of “don’ts” in regard to raising your hand to speak, leaving the room, doing…
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6. Love Your Students
Love starts with respect. Most people who grow up to be teachers loved school when they were young. They loved their teachers, they loved learning, they were often successful students and they respected the teacher and the rules. School was a great place for them. Because they respected adults, they entered the teaching profession believing…
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5. The Teacher Hasn’t Taught Until the Student has Learned.
One of the biggest lies a teacher tells herself when her students don’t perform well on an assessment is that she taught the content. What she did was a lot of talking about it, and a few volunteers accurately responded to her questions, so she believed the class was ready to test. You can talk,…
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4. Call Every Parent the First Two Weeks of School
Start calling home about the third day of school. That gives you time to learn some very specific things about your students. The first call home should always be for good news. Tell the parent every good thing you can think of about her child. Go ahead and move your challenging children to the front…
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3. Every Day is a Fresh Start.
This is very important. No child (or adult) needs to believe that they can make a mistake from which they can’t recover. A classroom is no place to hold a grudge. A classroom is a place for learning and learning happens with mistakes. When a child goes home for the day, you no longer have…
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2. We learn by doing.
Far too many people believe that learning happens because they studied. In fact, studying is just the process of teaching content to oneself. To tell a child to go home and “study” is, in essence, telling her to go home and teach the content to herself. She may sit down and try to commit to…
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1. Relationships. Are. Everything.
Any child you fail to connect with will never buy what you’re selling. Nobody remembers a teacher because she taught you the parts of speech or how to multiply double digit numbers. Teachers who are remembered fondly are those who built significant relationships with the learner. When a child is loved and nurtured at home,…
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