golden teacher growkit Outstanding teachers share a similar way of thinking about their work. The highest purpose of their work is not to just earn money (clearly!) or get results. The highest purpose of their teaching is to add real value to the lives of their students.

One thing I learned in my years working in schools as a teacher and administrator is that if you want your students to learn something, the best way to make it happen is to teach it to them. This sounds pretty simplistic. If I wanted students to learn to solve a mathematics problem, I taught them the steps to solving that kind of problem. Then we would practice it. This was all a part of the curriculum.

I walked into the event a lot late. In the 1960's it would be called "a happening." The name of the event was "Children, Our Ultimate Investment." It was a celebration of Aldous Huxley's birth. Ram Dass was on stage with (Alan Watt's cohort) Al Huang (of the Living Tao foundation). As Dass did his thing about Shiva and existence and bliss Al Huang danced spontaneously and these professional big kids were having a really good time as they carried Laura Huxley around the packed room and danced with her in their arms.

There is an old, often used joke about how to make money in network marketing. The answer, they say, is simple. All that you have to do is recruit, recruit, and recruit. Simple, you say? If you've been in MLM for any time at all you will know that even the most simple of things are not always easy. It takes an impressive amount of determination and discipline to stay the course even though there may not be much in the way of income at the start of your network marketing career. Although we all dream of time and lifestyle freedom, the reality is that it doesn't happen overnight. Only the most tenacious will endure, continuing to do what must be done in order to reach the goal. Those who do will reap great rewards as they recruit, recruit, and recruit.

The first day of the new school year began with Algebra II my tenth grade year. The teacher wanted to assign us seats for us on where to sit. I was a little advanced with mathematics, so I was taking classes one year ahead of time. This young woman, whom I actually met for a few moments a couple months beforehand, was assigned to sit in the back row. For whatever reason, I wasn't on the roster, so I was last to be seated. The seats were full, so the teacher assigned me to the back row, next to the young woman.

golden teacher growkit Like any experienced Jewish son, I quickly disregarded my mother's concern as paranoia. This is a woman who would triple-lock her bedroom door living in a convent (probably to ward off any lesbian nuns). When I became a lawyer, she suggested I change my last name and pretend to be gentile, because "law firms might not like the Jews." I informed her that in fact many of the most prominent law firms had Jewish names, but my mother wrote that off to an "attempt to be politically correct." According to her, those Jews were probably just figureheads. Apparently the Pope is the real mastermind behind the American legal system.

golden teacher growkit If you have to 'punish' students, then don't keep them in so that you have to supervise them. Give them useful work to do in their time so that you can have your breaks as a time to rest and relax. This punishment might be to report to the teacher on playground duty to pick up litter. Alternatively, they might report to you when you are on playground duty. You could remove privileges, have them on a behaviour card or on a behaviour contract.

Remember, students are self-centred. Many believe that because you are correcting their behaviour that 'you are picking on them' and/or 'you hate them'. You might get that impression from them too. Don't take it personally. It's just 'the nature of the beast'. Let what happens in the classroom stay there.

Intent also involves the use of your eyes. In the tai chi classics, it says something like, "The eyes and the hands must follow each other." However, this does not mean that your eyes must exactly follow the movement of your hands. It means that your eyes and hands must arrive at the same point at the same time.

As a upper-middle class child, like other upper-middle class kids, my parents bought me "the dog du jour" or what was trendy from a recent movie. From Irish Setters to Golden Retrievers to Great Danes to Sheepdogs.

golden teacher Being outstanding at teaching disaffected learners is actually fairly straightforward - but so few teachers do it. You just need to continually test and adapt new teaching strategies on a small scale. It may be a new lesson starter, using a new resource, instigating collaborative working techniques, student-led projects, negotiation techniques. You test small, then you measure the results. How did it go? What response did it generate? Did all the class engage and work? If it was not successful, you've learnt an important lesson and move on. If it was successful, you roll it out and make it an integral part of your teaching armoury.