Excuse Me, I'm Trying to Teach: Practical Advice for Attention, Behavior, and Teacher Sanity

EXCUSE ME, I'M TRYING TO TEACHPractical Advice for Attention, Behavior, and Teacher SanityTeaching was supposed to be about teaching.Instead, teachers often find themselves competing with smartphones, social media, chronic absenteeism, endless emails, overflowing paperwork, disruptive behavior, and a never-ending parade of initiatives that promise to solve everything while somehow creating even more work.Sound familiar?In Excuse Me, I'm Trying to Teach, veteran educator M. Ellis Shandor draws on more than two decades of classroom experience to explore what teaching really looks like in an age of distraction. Through honest stories, practical advice, and hard-earned lessons, Shandor examines the challenges facing today's teachers and offers common-sense strategies for navigating them without losing their sanity.This book explores why classroom management is really attention management, how to stop caring more than students and parents do, practical ways to reduce distractions and increase focus, why relationships matter but aren't magic, how to set professional boundaries without feeling guilty, strategies for surviving meetings, committees, and initiative overload, why perfection is overrated and authenticity matters more, and what works in real classrooms.Part memoir, part survival guide, and part reality check, this book doesn't offer educational buzzwords, miracle programs, or one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, it provides practical wisdom from a teacher who has spent years navigating the chaos of modern education while trying to keep the main thing the main thing.Whether you're a new teacher trying to survive your first year or a veteran educator looking for a reminder that you're not alone, Excuse Me, I'm Trying to Teach offers practical advice for attention, behavior, and teacher sanity in an increasingly distracted world.Because sometimes the best educational strategy is the simplest one: Teach the students in front of you.