Building Rapport With Our Students

Last week, we talked about how teachers were leaving the profession due, in part, to having difficulties managing student behavior.  Specifically, I addressed That Class That Drives You Up The Wall, as most of us have those from time to time, and there are tried and true remedies to help us all in that situation.

However, I really believe the #1 way to manage classroom behavior is in building a rapport with our students.  When you respect them, they in turn will respect you – and one way you can show them respect is by building a rapport with them.  I cannot overstate the importance of doing this!

Where do we begin?  Well, it begins by how we greet our students when they come to our door each day, day in and day out.  Notice I said to our door, not in our door, as we should always be standing in the hall by our door as they come in every day. (This is my humble opinion, of course.) The tone for everything that follows takes place right there at our door as we greet our students!  Don’t miss this golden opportunity!

Not only do I share with you the importance of greeting your students properly in this vlog, but I also give you several practical examples of how to greet your students, so stay tuned.  Please excuse my corniness at the beginning…I originally posted this in October, and I demonstrated greeting my students with a couple of pumpkins in my class.  Lord, help me! 😉

God bless you, teachers, as you bless your students.  Have a wonderful week!

That Class That Drives You Up The Wall!

Hello fellow teachers!

Maybe it’s just that time of year, but I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of posting in the educational blogging sphere about teachers giving up due, in part, to difficulties with classroom management.  I find that very discouraging, so what I thought I would do is share a post with you entitled That Class That Drives You Up The Wall!

What do we do when we encounter that class? One thing that can help is learning to train ourselves and our students to do certain things in certain situations. There’s not just one pat answer, but hopefully the acronym t r a i n in today’s vlog will produce some much needed results as far as improving your students’ behavior.  In the next couple of weeks, I’m also going to share some other ideas with you that might help you even more.  I certainly hope so anyway!

Be encouraged teachers, and hangeth thou in there!  Your work for the Lord is not in vain.  God bless you!

The Joyful Teacher!

Joy is contagious!  But you know what else is contagious?… sadness, sorrow, depression, and unhappiness.  So what do you do about it whenever you aren’t feeling particularly joyful, possibly even sad or upset, as you walk into your classroom on any given day?  Well, stay tuned and find out, my fellow teachers.

Also, today on the video blog, I discuss the 6 wonderful ways being filled with joy can help us.  To give you a sneak preview, here are the first 2:

• Joy helps you to fight your fear.

• Joy helps you destroy discouragement.

Please join me now on the vlog, and let’s encourage each other to be joyful in our classrooms.  Our students will be the biggest benefactors, and that’s what matters most! God bless you, and have a wonderful week in the classroom, teachers.  Stay devoted, and don’t forget about our boycott of Wal-mart! 

So You Didn’t Win Teacher of the Year?… Pt. 3 Is it Worth It?

Hello to all my fellow teachers out there in blog-land! 🙂

Today, we are finishing up our little mini-series on those of us who didn’t win, or haven’t won, #TOTY.  If you have kept up with the posts so far, you’ve learned the following:

• Our confidence, credibility, & influence comes from God and our students!
• If we don’t receive any rewards here, the ones that really matter will be awaiting us in heaven!
• The 12 disciples were ordinary people, just like you and just like me, who weren’t rewarded with any earthly awards or titles, and yet turned this world upside down for Jesus!  What they did receive was a lot of suffering. 

As we close out this series, we turn our focus to David, Mary, Joseph, and a few of the martyrs mentioned in the Faith Hall of Fame chapter in the Bible – Hebrews 11. If you ever need a good dose of inspiration, read this chapter!

Finally, at nearly 20 minutes, this is the longest video blog I’ve ever posted!  If you don’t have the time to watch in one sitting, please split it up.  I really think it will be worth it (pun intended), and will encourage you to be the best teacher for God you can possibly be.  I would love to read your feedback if you have the time as well.

Don’t forget about our boycott of Wal-mart for its anti-Christian discrimination policy.  Click here to read the post about it.  Stay devoted, my fellow teachers, and God bless you!

In Response to the Left’s Intolerance & War on Christianity

Don’t forget to spread the word about our boycott of Wal-mart, my fellow Christian teachers!  (See previous post.)  Keep up the good work!  YOU ARE AWESOME!

God bless you!

#RFRA  #WarOnChristians  #GetInvolved  #ChristianTeachersWanted

A Call For Christian Teachers to Boycott Wal-mart

I love Wal-mart.  Correction, I loved Wal-mart.  Over the years, I think I have single-handedly kept them in business being a wife and mother of four, not to mention all the school supplies I’ve purchased over the years for my classroom. But. No. More! Why you may ask?  The discrimination policy they have now issued against their Christian workers and Christians in general.

In pushing against the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (#RFRA) in Arkansas, they have thrown Christians under the bus.  Now, if two homosexuals ask a Wal-mart baker to write on a cake for them something pertaining to their marriage, then the Christian baker, according to Walmart’s recent stand, would have to do it or face the consequences of losing their job.  It’s a sad time in our country for Christians, isn’t it?  The first amendment rights of the Christian baker are out the window, and, I might add, Wal-mart could care less about the small business owners that really are affected by this.  (Sounds a lot like a predator going in for the kill, doesn’t it?)

So, it’s time to take a stand, my fellow Christian teachers!  We have the power to make a dent in their bottom line.  I’m asking you to join me in boycotting Wal-mart. These days we have many more places to shop in small town America, (big cities too!)  than we used to, and it’s in small town America where Wal-mart makes a killing.  Now is the time to take our business elsewhere.

A couple of really good arguments have come across my news feed in the past few days regarding this issue.  The first one, from best selling author Dinesh D’Souza, would solve the problem, that is, if common sense were the order of the day:  A Christian forced to compromise his religious beliefs has no choice in the matter but a gay couple looking for a service can go elsewhere (or in the case of big companies like Wal-mart, another worker who had no religious belief on the matter could do it instead.) The other one is from Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas:  Should a Muslim who owned a t-shirt business be forced to print t-shirts stating that Mohammad was a false prophet?  

Since Wal-mart is strong arming our rights to religious freedom, we, in turn, must strong arm Wal-mart by taking our business elsewhere!  Let’s do this together, my fellow teachers!  We have the right to love Jesus just as others have the right to love whomever they want.

Please spread the word and let the boycott begin…