You're going to be a great teacher. You've got knowledge, enthusiasm, desire, motivation. What you don't have is experience.

And experience makes the difference between a potentially great teacher and a comfortably great teacher.

We've got over 68 combined years of experience to share, which is what we've done in...

"The Handy-Dandy Desktop Mentor."

No esoteric teaching methods. No field studies or carefully calibrated experiments. Just down-to-earth, helpful hints and suggestions to help you survive your first (few) years as a teacher.

We warn you about common pitfalls, give suggestions for getting along with fellow teachers, toss out a few classroom management techniques, offer advice on dealing with parents, and share secrets on organizing some of that "stuff" you've suddenly acquired.

If what you want is dull, dry treatise on pedagogy, or if you need a heavy meal of ibids and op.cits laced with quotes from learned professors of education, this book's not for you. It's quick and easy reading, a bit light-hearted, but as serious as an air strike about helping you bet the teacher you know you were meant to be.

A handbook for initially licensed, novice and beginning teachers that shares classroom management ideas, tips for getting along with educational personnel, suggestions for dealing with parents, and advice that good mentoring
teachers share for success in the classroom, written with humor by experienced educators.

As a new teacher, you won’t be doing battle with a supreme Evil like Sauron or traveling into the Cracks of Doom like Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, but like those two Hobbits, you are ‘expected to find a way...’ (Book IV, Chpt. 3) A way to make learning fun, but keep control of the classroom; a way to reach thirty different children with thirty different learning styles, a way to teach whole-heartedly while fielding a barrage of forms, procedures, expectations and instructions.

Frodo and the others who formed the “Fellowship of the Ring” had Gandalf to help them on their perilous way, and lucky novice teachers have experienced Mentoring Teachers, but guess what? Fewer than 20 states require mentors for new teachers!! That’s why my daughter Wendy, my husband Sam, and I have written. . .

We want you to succeed. And we know there are dangers out there. Ours is not a textbook as much as it is a conversation. We’ve got nearly 70 years experience among the three of us, and we share it in such chapters as Tongue Tricks (Or, Few Thoughts on What to Say and How to Say It); Ride ‘em Cowboy! (Or Hints for Managing a Classroom and Other Ways to Stay in the Saddle); and Nuts, Bolts, and Other Equipment (Or Dealing with Stuff).

If you order, we also want you to know that we’re available by e-mail just to listen to you complain, let off steam, or brag; to offer our opinions if you want ‘em or keep ‘em to ourselves if you don’t. After all, Sam and I are retired, what better do we have to do with our time?

Thanks for visiting our site...and, if you’d like to have a single copy of our Desktop Mentor, just use PayPal or contact us direct at 1-336-366-2980 for questions or to order multiple copies at a discount.