Judi Holst
TBD Teacher
When I tell people I teach “middle schoolers,” they sigh and say they’re sorry. Then I usually get a story or two about a traumatic event that happened to them in middle school. I’ve started to change-up my answer to, “What do you do for a living?” Currently, I say, “I help teenagers gain confidence in their public speaking skills.” Now their reaction is, “Wow, that’s so cool. I wish someone had taught me those skills when I was growing up.”
WHAT DO I TEACH?
I’m a public speaking teacher at a middle school in Colorado, and I have been at this teaching business for almost 32 years. I am also one of the Leads for Gifted Education in our district. I taught kindergarten and second grade, but those cute kids just couldn’t get my jokes, so I moved up to 8th grade. I was an 8th Grade Language Arts teacher for 20 years. Now, I am happily teaching an elective public speaking class each day. Seriously, these kids make me laugh all of the time. On top of public speaking, gifted education is my passion.
WHY DID I START MY BLOG?
I started TBD Teacher as a blog because I wanted to share my ideas with other teachers. My first blog is found at http://tbdteacher.tumblr.com/. This current blog focuses mainly on different teaching tips; if you’re looking to change it up in your classroom one step at a time, then this blog is for you. I love knowing that my blog is being read by teachers across the world. I especially enjoy reading comments from my readers, so please feel free to leave your thoughts.
WHAT DO I DO IN MY FREE TIME?
I am happily married to my handsome hubby, and we dote on our pug, Stuey. No, I don’t normally dress him up, but we had to cheer on our Broncos football team for the Super Bowl. His facial expression looks like he is dying of embarrassment on the inside.
In my free time, I love to read and post my book reviews here, go hiking with my friends or hubby, travel, hug on my family, and hang out with friends. I also enjoy shooting some arrows around in the forest. No, I don’t use this as a discipline tactic in my classroom.
Amazing Teacher Podcast
I was honored to be featured on Sam Rangel’s Amazing Teacher Podcast. You can read about it and listen to it here. Make sure to check out the educators he featured on his podcast. I have learned a lot from many of them.
Teacher of the Day
I was excited to be contacted by Education World that someone had nominated me to be featured as their “Teacher for a Day.” You can read more about it here:
My Best Birthday Surprise
Have you ever had a wish come true in your class? One day I had told my class that I have always wanted my class to break out in song like they do on the show GLEE. Little did I know that they would actually do this for me on my birthday. It was one of my favorite teaching moments of all time.
Shark Tank Blog
If you know me well, you’ll know that one of my favorite units to teach is centered around the show “Shark Tank.” I was so excited to be contacted by the person who writes the blog for the tv show, and they asked if they could feature my class on their blog.
Our local paper, the Castle Pines Connection, also featured it in their newspaper.
