He loved football, disdained schoolwork, and seemed headed for a factory job in his hometown—until a maverick philosophy teacher turned his life around.When Frank Lears, a small, nervous man wearing a moth-eaten suit, arrived at Medford fresh from Harvard University, his students pegged him as an easy target. Lears was unfazed by their spitballs and classroom antics. He shook things up, trading tired textbooks for Kesey and Camus, and provoking his class with questions about authority, conformity, civil rights, and the Vietnam War. He rearranged seats and joined in a ferocious snowball fight with Edmundson and his football crew. Lears’s impassioned attempts to get these kids to think for themselves provided Mark Edmundson with exactly the push he needed to break away from the lockstep life of Medford High. Written with verve and candor, Teacher is Edmundson’s heartfelt tribute to the man who changed the course of his life.

    What if everything you knew about education was wrong? is just a title. Of course, you probably think a great many things that aren't wrong. The aim of the book is to help you 'murder your darlings'. David Didau will question your most deeply held assumptions about teaching and learning, expose them to the fiery eye of reason and see if they can still walk in a straight line after the experience. It seems reasonable to suggest that only if a theory or approach can withstand the fiercest scrutiny should it be encouraged in classrooms. David makes no apologies for this; why wouldn't you be sceptical of what you're told and what you think you know? As educated professionals, we ought to strive to assemble a more accurate, informed or at least considered understanding of the world around us. Here, David shares with you some tools to help you question your assumptions and assist you in picking through what you believe. He will stew findings from the shiny white laboratories of cognitive psychology, stir in a generous dash of classroom research and serve up a side order of experience and observation. Whether you spit it out or lap it up matters not. If you come out the other end having vigorously and violently disagreed with him, you'll at least have had to think hard about what you believe. The book draws on research from the field of cognitive science to expertly analyse some of the unexamined meta-beliefs in education. In Part 1; 'Why we're wrong', David dismantles what we think we know; examining cognitive traps and biases, assumptions, gut feelings and the problem of evidence. Part 2 delves deeper - 'Through the threshold' - looking at progress, liminality and threshold concepts, the science of learning, and the difference between novices and experts. In Part 3, David asks us the question 'What could we do differently?' and offers some considered insights into spacing and interleaving, the testing effect, the generation effect, reducing feedback and why difficult is desirable. While Part 4 challenges us to consider 'What else might we be getting wrong?'; cogitating formative assessment, lesson observation, grit and growth, differentiation, praise, motivation and creativity.

    After what can only be defined as a cosmic experience when a flower broke up a fight in his classroom, he saw a way to start tackling his school’s problems: plants. He flipped his curriculum to integrate gardening as an entry point for all learning and inadvertently created an international phenomenon. As Ritz likes to say, “Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens who are growing and eating themselves into good health and amazing opportunities.”The Power of a Plant tells the story of a green teacher from the Bronx who let one idea germinate into a movement and changed his students’ lives by learning alongside them. Since greening his curriculum, Ritz has seen near-perfect attendance and graduation rates, dramatically increased passing rates on state exams, and behavioral incidents slashed in half. In the poorest congressional district in America, he has helped create 2,200 local jobs and built farms and gardens while changing landscapes and mindsets for residents, students, and colleagues. Along the way, Ritz lost more than 100 pounds by eating the food that he and his students grow in school. The Power of a Plant is his story of hope, resilience, regeneration, and optimism.

    Ratchetdemic advocates for a new kind of student identity--one that bridges the seemingly disparate worlds of the ivory tower and the urban classroom. Because modern schooling often centers whiteness, Emdin argues, it dismisses ratchet identity (the embodying of "negative" characteristics associated with lowbrow culture, often thought to be possessed by people of a particular ethnic, racial, or socioeconomic status) as anti-intellectual and punishes young people for straying from these alleged "academic norms," leaving young people in classrooms frustrated and uninspired. These deviations, Emdin explains, include so-called "disruptive behavior" and a celebration of hip-hop music and culture.Emdin argues that being "ratchetdemic," or both ratchet and academic (like having rap battles about science, for example), can empower students to embrace themselves, their backgrounds, and their education as parts of a whole, not disparate identities. This means celebrating protest, disrupting the status quo, and reclaiming the genius of youth in the classroom.

    This title shows you how to get up and running fast with complete coverage of this useful scripting tool. The author covers ActionScript from a designer's viewpoint, showing you how to make the most of it without having to be a programmer.

    students continue to slip behind in the worlds rankings in science and math. Yet, at the same time, state prison budgets are increasing nearly three times as fast as budgets for education. In her new book, Linda Darling-Hammond, a chief education advisor to President Barack Obama, a bestselling author, and a nationally recognized leader in education reform, explores how America's performance globally is linked to the minority-majority achievement gap at home.

    Empowerment. Student Leadership. These buzz words get a lot of press, but what do they really mean for today's students? Can students really handle the responsibility of leading the class? Can they actually learn what they need to if they are working together so often? Won't all this freedom cause chaos in the classroom? Not if you're teaching them to learn like PIRATES! Peer Collaboration builds community and supports teamwork and cooperation. Improvement-focused learning challenges students to constantly strive to be their best. Responsibility for daily tasks builds ownership in the classroom. Active learning turns boring lessons into fun and memorable experiences. Twenty-first century skills engage students now and prepare them for their futures. Empowerment allows students to become confident risk-takers who make bold decisions. In Learn Like a PIRATE, teachers will discover practical strategies for creating a student-led classroom in which students are inspired and empowered to take charge of their learning experience. You'll learn strategies for: - Crafting active, relevant, and interesting lessons - Creating opportunities for student leadership - Providing effective and beneficial feedback - Instilling confidence so students can take risks - Increasing curiosity and passion for learning Incorporate the techniques and strategies Paul Solarz uses in his student-led classroom and watch your students transform into confident, collaborative leaders."In Learn Like a PIRATE, Paul Solarz explains how to design classroom experiences that encourage students to take risks and explore their passions in a stimulating, motivating, and supportive environment where improvement, rather than grades, is the focus. The particular techniques (and the underlying philosophy) he offers are highly consistent with teaching practice at the distinguished level in my Framework for Teaching. In that model, I tried to describe, at the distinguished level, classrooms in which the teacher has created a community of learners, with the students themselves assuming much of the responsibility for what occurs there. Mr. Solarz offers specific ideas for how to accomplish that." - Charlotte Danielson, author of Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching "As I read Learn Like A PIRATE I regretted that I was not teaching in the classroom where I would be able to work with students in the thoughtful and imaginative ways that he suggests. It is rare that we have a first hand report of the day to day practicalities of transforming classes into places where students can become self-directed, curious, interdependent learners. Paul has succeeded in sharing his passion for authentic 21st century teaching as well as inspiring us to imitate and invent our own models for preparing our students for an increasingly complex world of invention and problem solving." - Bena Kallick, Co-director of the Institute for Habits of Mind

    Too often, however, the mathematics instruction that we impose upon them in the classroom fails to connect with this informal knowledge. Children's Mathematics was written to help you understand children's intuitive mathematical thinking and use that knowledge to help children learn mathematics with understanding. Based on more than twenty years of research, this book portrays the development of children's understanding of basic number concepts. The authors offer a detailed explanation and numerous examples of the problem-solving and computational processes that virtually all children use as their numerical thinking develops. They also describe how classrooms can be organized to foster that development. Two accompanying CDs provide a remarkable inside look at students and teachers in real classrooms implementing the teaching and learning strategies described in the text. Together, the book and CDs provide you with the foundation necessary to engage children in discussions of how they think through problems-providing suggestions for what problems to give and insight into what responses to expect, and how children's thinking will evolve.

    It is for teachers who refuse to harden their hearts, because they love learners, learning, and the teaching life." - Parker J. Palmer [from the Introduction] Teachers choose their vocation for reasons of the heart, because they care deeply about their students and about their subject. But the demands of teaching cause too many educators to lose heart. Is it possible to take heart in teaching once more so that we can continue to do what good teachers always do -- give heart to our students?In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students -- and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors.

    Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no. In Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be, Frank Bruni explains why this mindset is wrong, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes. Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are students' efforts in and out of the classroom, not the name on their diploma. Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that--and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.

    It is for everyone who cares about education in an uncertain world and explains how teachers, parents and grandparents can cultivate confidence, curiosity, collaboration, communication, creativity, commitment and craftsmanship in children, at the same time as helping them to do well in public examinations. Educating Ruby shows, unequivocally, that schools can get the right results in the right way, so that the Rubys of tomorrow will emerge from their time at school able to talk with honest pleasure and reflective optimism about their schooling. Featuring the views of schoolchildren, parents, educators and employers and drawing on Guy Claxton and Bill Lucas’ years of experience in education, including their work with Building Learning Power and the Expansive Education Network, this powerful new book is sure to provoke thinking and debate. Just as Willy Russell’s Educating Rita helped us rethink university, the authors of Educating Ruby invite fresh scrutiny of our schools.

    Discusses ways to improve the American educational system, arguing that the art of teaching is far more important than increased spending.

    Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen have helped hundreds of thousands of parents raise capable, independent children with Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World. On its tenth anniversary, this parenting classic returns with fresh, up-to-date information to offer you inspiring and workable ideas for developing a trusting relationship with children, as well as the skills to implement the necessary discipline to help your child become a responsible adult.Those who think in terms of leniency versus strictness will be surprised. This book goes beyond these issues to teach children to be responsible and self-reliant—not through outer-directed concerns, such as fear and intimidation, but through inner-directed behavior, such as feeling accountable for one's commitments. Inside, you'll discover how to instill character-building values and traits in your child that last a lifetime.

    A no-holds-barred assault on outdated teaching methods--with dramatic & practical proposals on how education can be made relevant to today's world.IntroductionCrap detecting The medium is the message, of course The inquiry method Pursuing relevance What's worth knowing?Meaning making Languaging New teachersCity schoolsNew languages: the media-Two alternatives So what do you do now? Strategies for survival

    Inspired by the popular mindset idea that hard work and effort can lead to success, Mindsets in the Classroom provides educators with ideas for building a growth mindset school culture, wherein students are challenged to change their thinking about their abilities and potential. With the book's step-by-step guidance on adopting a differentiated, responsive instruction model, teachers can immediately use growth mindset culture in their classrooms. It also highlights the importance of critical thinking and teaching students to learn from failure. Includes a sample professional development plan and ideas for communicating the mindset concept to parents.