Teachers Welcome
Teach from the Web
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Harry Wong is the founder of teachers.net. You might remember him as the author of two excellent books that I would recommend for any education major: The First Days of School and Emergency Teacher. Both books touch on how first year teachers are most likely to quit after just one year of teaching. Teachers are needed in every state and in every school but when these new teachers are hired they are left to fend for themselves. They do not feel welcome to the new campus, the resources are severly limited, office staff is too busy to show them around, and to top it off the children in their classes are brutal and uninterested. Teachers.net is superior because it is dedicated to keeping teachers in the classroom.
On this website there are unending lists of links to any education related question or interest you may have. For those who are soon to graduate, you can link to the public school classified ads. For any who are teaching Kindergarten, High School, Middle School, Special Ed etc., there is something for you to read and print if you'd like. For those of us who want to know what keeps a child interested and involved in his/her education there are thousands of activities and project ideas from teachers who have already tested them out and found them to be effective. I found a great idea for a middle school english class that involves Shakespeare. Instead of writing the traditional 5-paragraph essay after reading Romeo and Juliet, why not have the class get into groups and create a newspaper about the events taking place in Verona. The students could have an advice column, obituary, wedding announcement etc. Here's a free assignment that promotes group think, recommended by a teacher, and it sounds kind of fun. There is no longer a need to panic on the first days of teaching because the creation of our curriculums and lesson plans will be aided by qualified and dedicated teachers. WHEW.
I searched the site with the key phrase Wai'anae and was suprised at how much information was passed from teacher to teacher through the chatboards. Mainland teachers who were planning on moving to Hawai'i were wondering if they would be safe teaching at a school on the Wai'anae Coast. Other teachers wanted to know about certain cultural practices and how to integrate the Hawaiian culture into their math and science classes. There was a woman who had a child who was half-White and half-African-American and she wanted to know if students in Hawai'i were very prejudiced to those of mixed race. Well, each post was answered at least a dozen times. What an amazing resource. It is not often that you get intelligent personal responses from people you don't know.
The set up of the website is really funny because it reminds me of the dedicated teachers I know. They are full of information. They are full of ideas. They are organized and yet not, because of all the new information they read that they want to transfer into an existing lesson. Within the world of education there is so much information that I am amazed that this site has been able to put at least minimal organization and style to the mess of ideas. Teachers.net has more links to education related things than enyone could possible read. Also in reference to the image on the front page...of course it is an apple. Our lifetime symbol of education. How appropriate. -Carmen E.-
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Harry Wong is the founder of teachers.net. You might remember him as the author of two excellent books that I would recommend for any education major: The First Days of School and Emergency Teacher. Both books touch on how first year teachers are most likely to quit after just one year of teaching. Teachers are needed in every state and in every school but when these new teachers are hired they are left to fend for themselves. They do not feel welcome to the new campus, the resources are severly limited, office staff is too busy to show them around, and to top it off the children in their classes are brutal and uninterested. Teachers.net is superior because it is dedicated to keeping teachers in the classroom.
On this website there are unending lists of links to any education related question or interest you may have. For those who are soon to graduate, you can link to the public school classified ads. For any who are teaching Kindergarten, High School, Middle School, Special Ed etc., there is something for you to read and print if you'd like. For those of us who want to know what keeps a child interested and involved in his/her education there are thousands of activities and project ideas from teachers who have already tested them out and found them to be effective. I found a great idea for a middle school english class that involves Shakespeare. Instead of writing the traditional 5-paragraph essay after reading Romeo and Juliet, why not have the class get into groups and create a newspaper about the events taking place in Verona. The students could have an advice column, obituary, wedding announcement etc. Here's a free assignment that promotes group think, recommended by a teacher, and it sounds kind of fun. There is no longer a need to panic on the first days of teaching because the creation of our curriculums and lesson plans will be aided by qualified and dedicated teachers. WHEW.
I searched the site with the key phrase Wai'anae and was suprised at how much information was passed from teacher to teacher through the chatboards. Mainland teachers who were planning on moving to Hawai'i were wondering if they would be safe teaching at a school on the Wai'anae Coast. Other teachers wanted to know about certain cultural practices and how to integrate the Hawaiian culture into their math and science classes. There was a woman who had a child who was half-White and half-African-American and she wanted to know if students in Hawai'i were very prejudiced to those of mixed race. Well, each post was answered at least a dozen times. What an amazing resource. It is not often that you get intelligent personal responses from people you don't know.
The set up of the website is really funny because it reminds me of the dedicated teachers I know. They are full of information. They are full of ideas. They are organized and yet not, because of all the new information they read that they want to transfer into an existing lesson. Within the world of education there is so much information that I am amazed that this site has been able to put at least minimal organization and style to the mess of ideas. Teachers.net has more links to education related things than enyone could possible read. Also in reference to the image on the front page...of course it is an apple. Our lifetime symbol of education. How appropriate. -Carmen E.-
posted by Carmen at 5:09 PM
1 Comments:
This appears to be a very valuable resources for teachers. The modes it uses are primarily print, with some animated images, but the most important modal aspect here seems to be the discussion boards which allow teachers from across the country to share information and experiences. Your search for Wai'anae proved to have interesting results--it's good that Hawai'i gets represented in nationally based sites like this.
You're very aware of the ways the site appeals to its audience. There's also an interesting aspect of ethos in the biography of Harry Wong, which seems to be promoting the Wongs as specialists in classroom management with years of experience behind them.
I wonder what you make of the many advertisements that surround the central information on the site's opening page. Does the sponsorship this site seems to require say something about the economic problems facing all resources like this that seek to help teachers, an often underpaid and underrepresented group?
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