Hey, I’m Sandee! I started The Savvy Business Teacher to help make the lives of teachers in business and technology education a little less stressful. When I became a business education teacher I was so excited to teach my students real-world concepts to help them in college and later in their future careers. I had great ideas for how to supplement the curriculum to make exciting and dynamic lessons. When I showed up in my classroom on my first day, I was greeted by a storage closet full of stacks of random textbooks, old overhead projector films, and copies of handmade worksheets. I was instantly dismayed and unsure of my ability to teach without any general course content to follow.
I soon learned 3 things:
#1 No one knows what they are doing!
- Every teacher starts off not knowing what to expect
- Usually, only core subjects have a standard curriculum and pacing to follow
- Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it
#2 Students don’t want to take your class
- Most students have no idea what business, entrepreneurship, or marketing even means
- If they don’t know what classes they want to take they usually get placed in a random elective course
#3 I knew I had the skill set to help motivate my students to want to learn more and continue their studies in my business education courses
As I sat in that empty classroom of chaos, the gears started spinning with all the possibilities of what my classroom could become. I thought back to my own experiences from being in high school business courses and finding ways to teach that same type of content to students who are born with an iPhone in their hands.
My Welcome Week activities became my main focus. I needed something that would engage my students from Day 1. My classroom teaching philosophy is built on the principles of collaboration and cooperation.
These activities played an integral part in introducing my classroom to my students while also allowing us all to get to know each other better. Most subjects begin teaching content on the first day. In English you might start reading, in Math you would do math problems. But for me, that first week is not about teaching Marketing or Entrepreneurship, instead, it was a way for me to create a safe space for my students to begin to develop and learn life skills that will follow them into the future.
So Welcome to my page and into creating your own savviness!