Alex Kajitani

Featured Keynote Programs

Fifteen years ago, Alex Kajitani was a struggling new teacher in one of California’s poorest neighborhoods. His students were unmotivated, unengaged and uninterested in what he was teaching. Demoralized and desperate, he set out on a journey to turn his class, and his life, around. From frustrated new teacher to being honored at The White House – this journey is one he now shares with educators across the country, to inspire them to new heights and fresh ways of thinking about the students they serve and the subjects they teach. Alex tells refreshingly honest stories of what it truly takes to succeed as a teacher today, and interweaves them with real, easy-to-implement teaching strategies, which can be used the very next day, to create the world as it can be.

Six Principles to Motivate and Reinvigorate Teachers

Teaching is not just what we do. Teaching is what we are. This session presents six principles that remind us why we chose teaching, why we love teaching, and exactly what we can do to be the greatest teacher ever! From learning from our own failures to understanding our students' ethnicity, Alex shares stories, strategies and inspiration that can be immediately implemented to have a lasting effect on our students and our profession.

After eight years of successful teaching, one of the country’s top teachers found himself with a class that left him frustrated, helpless, and wanting to quit.

Instead of quitting, Alex dedicated himself to mastering four principles of classroom management that revolutionized every aspect of how he ran his class. In this presentation, Alex weaves stories of brutal honesty and hope with classroom management strategies and solutions that will inspire new teachers, reinvigorate veteran educators and motivate mid-career educators to teach with passion, courage, and a determination to succeed.

Let’s be honest: We can’t teach our students if we don’t understand who they are, and how they’re motivated. The key is to stop trying to force our curriculum into our students’ lives and, instead, fit our students’ lives into the curriculum. Alex connects his own desperate attempts to connect with his students to the lessons he learned along his journey to becoming one of America’s top teachers. Be prepared to laugh, to cry, to return to your school ignited with fresh strategies that can be immediately implemented.

Alex shares the four leadership secrets that he has used throughout his career, first as the manager of a successful restaurant, and then as a middle school math teacher, where he is considered one of the country’s top teachers. Yesterday’s students are today’s employees, and today’s students are the employees of tomorrow. Thus, Alex connects the often awkward lessons we all experienced in middle school, to the profound challenges we face in managing our human resources, and how both require a similar skill set and belief in our employees to be successful.

From pimples to payroll, and from class management to risk management, this session offers fresh, easy-to-implement strategies and proven results to ignite leaders at all levels to return to work and make a difference in the companies and organizations they serve.

The ability to speak, read and write is now an essential part of math class. Teachers will explore, discuss, practice and reflect upon high-leverage strategies that are easy-to-implement, and will get our students on the path toward achieving the State Standards.
Specific topics to be covered include:

• Inspiring students to talk about math in a way that is meaningful and relevant to their lives.
• Getting students writing about math, and using math to argue, communicate and justify their thinking.
• Teaching students to persevere in attempting, evaluating and solving “word problems.”
• Addressing the negative stereotypes about math that exist in society, and how to combat them.
• Engaging students with strategies, activities and games that can be used to teach the State Standards.

The workshop that made Alex famous! This session offers teachers the tools, courage and expertise to combat negative stereotypes of mathematicians as “nerdy” and “boring.” Before students can be motivated to achieve in math, they must first see its value in their own lives. Engaging, effective teaching speaks to students where they live. “Making Math Cool!” delivers easy-to-implement, hands-on strategies that turn even the most hardened student into one that says, “Hey, that’s pretty cool -- and so is my teacher!”

Alex knows that all successful students know their times tables, and he is on a mission to get EVERY kid in America to know them by the time they leave elementary school. In this session, he shows you step-by-step how to create a program in your class, or at your school, that is fun and effective, and empowers all students to achieve in math.