Our mantras...

We can come up with some general teaching philosophies and rules of thumb when approaching situations in class and dealing with the actions of students.

For example: Focusing less on trouble makers and more on students who are excited about the lesson. Maybe brainstorm some mantras to stick with to minimalize and deter comments from annoying students. I think we need to stop defending our class to the disrespectful students and maybe the way we can do that is by answering these questions while we plan.

Mantra: Initiative--Learning InDesign is like a language--you will never know every word and you can always say things in many different ways. The most basic function, though, is to communicate effectively. If an editor gives you a deadline, it doesn't matter if you can do it in twelve different ways--you just need to be able to get the job done.

Mantra: Don't take anything too personal. Remember--teenagers use more of their emotions to guide actions as opposed to rationale, like adults. They have many emotions floating around and are searching for the person they want to be as they try to make sense of the environment around them. By showing them that we as teachers can maintain our cool, or as my niece says, "not letting the ice melt," we will be teaching them way more than they will ever learn in a semester of E-Zine.