What does it mean to be a "Whole Brain Teacher"?

A colleague of mine recently asked me, "What makes it 'Whole Brain' Teaching?" I find this is  a pretty common question for those that haven't yet been sucked into watching hours of YouTube videos showing these amazing strategies at work.

That's how I entered my path to WBT: YouTube. I was fascinated from the first second. When I first stumbled across a video by Chris Biffle, I was absolutely memorized. Several hours and countless videos later, I knew that I would never teach the same way again.

So what does it mean to be a "Whole Brain Teacher"? To me, the answer is simple. It means not settling for how I was taught in school.

Don't get me wrong, I had some great teachers. But the mediocre ones greatly outnumbered the exemplary ones. And I knew which was which in elementary school.

Being a Whole Brain Teacher, what we call a "Wibbiteer", means that you want a classroom where students are engaged, having fun, and working together. You want their senses to be filled - seeing, hearing, speaking, moving, and being emotionally connected with you and other students. It means that you want to see your students feel the WONDER of learning something new and teaching it to someone else. It means not settling for anything less that 100% student engagement, and by doing so you leave no room in a child's brain for challenging behavior. They are just too stinkin' busy having fun.

For me, Whole Brain Teaching gave me back my joy. I leave school every single day with a smile on my face. OK, maybe not every single day. But darn close.

When I work with teachers, either at conferences that I give or during Skypes with schools, I tell them that in WBT you will find techniques that will help fill up your teaching toolbag. When I graduated college I had a lot of ideas about great teaching, but my toolbag was very empty. WBT fills up that toolbag with strategies to use all through the year - both to motivate those higher achieving students as well as those that are more challenging. And the best part is that all of these strategies are FREE and available to anyone that wants them.

If you are interested in learning more about WBT, I highly suggest that you click on my "Where to Start" tab at the top of the page, register at WholeBrainTeaching.com,  and get a copy of  Coach B.'s book on Amazon (and look on page 4 for my name!).

Send me an email if you're interested in hosting a conference at your school or hosting Skype sessions for your staff to get one-on-one training in the numerous WBT techniques, sarahmeador@wholebrainteaching.com.