She moves beyond the black and white “mommy wars” over natural parenting, discipline, and work-life balance to explore a more nuanced reality: one filled with ambivalence, joy, guilt, and exhaustion.    Would-be parents must navigate the decision to have children amidst a daunting combination of cultural expectations and hard facts. And new parents find themselves struggling to reconcile their elation with the often exhausting, confusing, and expensive business of child care. When researchers for a 2010 Pew study asked parents why they decided to have their first child, nearly 90 percent answered, for “the joy of having children.” Yet nearly every study in the last ten years shows a marked decline in the life satisfaction of those with kids.  Valenti explores this disconnect between parents’ hopes and the day-to-day reality of raising children—revealing all the ways mothers and fathers are quietly struggling. A must-read for parents as well as those considering starting a family, Why Have Kids? is an explosive addition to the conversation about modern parenthood.

    White people generally fail to understand that they have a racial identity -- whether they are willing to recognize it or not -- and that having it doesn't have to be a negative. Designed specifically for Whites, but useful for others, this easy-to-read paperback includes examples and activities that enhance the reader's understanding of the part race plays in the lives of each of us. This book is being used in various programs and classes at universities, school districts and businesses across the country, as well as by individuals across the world.Who needs a color-blind society? --I'm not colored --But what color am I? --Recognizing racism --A model of white racial identity development --Contact : "I'm an innocent" --Disintegration : "How can I be white?" --Reintegration : "We have the best because we are the best!" --Pseudo-independent : "Let's help them become more like whites" --Immersion/emersion : "I'm white!" --Autonomy : "I see color and like it!"

    We remember the uncertainty of separating from our home and entering school as strangers and, more than the relief of making friends, we recall the cruel moments of our own isolation as well as those children we knew were destined to remain strangers.In this book Vivian Paley employs a unique strategy to probe the moral dimensions of the classroom. She departs from her previous work by extending her analysis to children through the fifth grade, all the while weaving remarkable fairy tale into her narrative description. Paley introduces a new rule--"You can't say you can't play"--to her kindergarten classroom and solicits the opinions of older children regarding the fairness of such a rule. We hear from those who are rejected as well as those who do the rejecting. One child, objecting to the rule, says, "It will be fairer, but how are we going to have any fun?" Another child defends the principle of classroom bosses as a more benign way of excluding the unwanted.In a brilliant twist, Paley mixes fantasy and reality, and introduces a new voice into the debate: Magpie, a magical bird, who brings lonely people to a place where a full share of the sun is rightfully theirs. Myth and morality begin to proclaim the same message and the schoolhouse will be the crucible in which the new order is tried. A struggle ensues and even the Magpie stories cannot avoid the scrutiny of this merciless pack of social philosophers who will not be easily caught in a morality tale.You Can't Say You Can't Play speaks to some of our most deeply held beliefs. Is exclusivity part of human nature? Can we legislate fairness and still nurture creativity and individuality? Can children be freed from the habit of rejection? These are some of the questions. The answers are to be found in the words of Paley's schoolchildren and in the wisdom of their teacher who respectfully listens to them.

    The author's step-by-step approach makes the strategies easy to implement and help to ensure ongoing success.Hiring effectively is the single greatest long-term contribution to your organization. The only thing worse than having an open position is filling it with the wrong person. The Effective Hiring Manager offers a proven process for solving these problems and helping teams and organizations thrive.The fundamental principles of hiring and interviewing How to create criteria to hire by How to create excellent interview questions How to review resumes How to conduct phone screens How to structure an interview day How to conduct each interview How to capture interview results How to make an offer How to decline a candidate How to onboard candidates Written by Mark Horstman, co-founder of Manager Tools and an expert in training managers, The Effective Hiring Manager is an A to Z handbook to the successful hiring process. The book explores, in helpful detail, what it takes to hire the right person, for the right job, and the right team.

    Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on "the accomplishment of natural growth," in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously—as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided. Each of these approaches to childrearing brings its own benefits and its own drawbacks. In identifying and analyzing differences between the two, Lareau demonstrates the power, and limits, of social class in shaping the lives of America's children.The first edition of Unequal Childhoods was an instant classic, portraying in riveting detail the unexpected ways in which social class influences parenting in white and African-American families. A decade later, Annette Lareau has revisited the same families and interviewed the original subjects to examine the impact of social class in the transition to adulthood.

    The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for black travelers. It was a resourceful and innovative solution to a horrific problem. It took courage to be listed in the Green Book, and Overground Railroad celebrates the stories of those who put their names in the book and stood up against segregation. It shows the history of the Green Book, how we arrived at our present historical moment, and how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations in America.

    In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a re-visioning - of our nation's past.

    Rather, a combination of causes can create a perfect storm of failure.” —Wiley BlevinsPicture a class of kindergarteners singing the alphabet song, and teaching phonics  seems as easy as one-two, three, A, B, C, right? In a Fresh Look at Phonics, Wiley Blevins explains why it can get tricky, and then delivers a plan so geared for success, that teachers, coaches, and administrators will come to see owning this book as a before and after moment in their professional lives. In this amazing follow up to his renowned resource Phonics From A-Z, Wiley uses the data he has collected over two decades to share which approaches truly work, which have failed, and how teachers can fine-tune their daily instruction for success. You will learn to focus on the seven critical ingredients of phonics teaching that produce the greatest student learning gains— readiness skills, scope and sequence, blending, dictation, word awareness, high frequency words, and reading connected texts. Then, for each ingredient, Wiley shares:   Activities, routines, word lists, and lessons that develop solid foundations for reading Ideas for differentiation, ELL, and advanced learners to ensure adequate progress for all learners Help on decodable texts, what not to over-do, and what you can’t do enough of for your students’ achievement Interactive “Day Clinic” activities that facilitate teacher self-reflection and school wide professional learning In a final section, Wiley details the ten common reasons instruction fails and shows teachers how to correct these missteps regarding lesson pacing, transitions, decodable texts, writing activities, assessment and more. A Fresh Look at Phonics is the evidence-based solution you have been seeking. Wiley Blevins, Ph.D., is a world-renowned expert on early reading, and author of the seminal book Phonics From A-Z among many other works. He has taught in both the United States and South America, and regularly trains teachers throughout Asia. He holds a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University, and has worked with numerous educational scholars, including Jeanne Chall, Isabel Beck, Marilyn Adams, Louisa Moats, and Dianne August, and others.

    Nothing is impossible when one digs deep,and looks at students through a new lens.

    This is the first book in which he looked beyond schooling as the sole problem of education or as the sole solution. No longer would Holt argue that if we could only make schools better, the problems that he and other critics outlined would be solved.

    “Black Lives Matter at School is an essential resource for all those seeking to build an antiracist school system."—Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times Bestselling AuthorBlack Lives Matter at School succinctly generalizes lessons from successful challenges to institutional racism that have been won through the Black Lives Matter at School movement. This book will inspire many more educators and activists to join the Black Lives Matter at School movement at a moment when this antiracist work in our schools could not be more urgent and critical to education justice.Contributors include Opal Tometi, who wrote a moving foreword, Bettina Love who shares a powerful chapter on abolitionist teaching, Brian Jones who centers Black Lives Matter at School in the historical context of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in education and prominent teacher union leaders from Chicago to Los Angeles and beyond who discuss the importance of anti-racist struggle in education unions. The book includes essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from educators, students and parents around the country who have been building Black Lives Matter at School on the ground.

    Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist).The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported.Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an afterword reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen.

     In EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE, Matera serves as your experienced guide to help you apply the most motivational techniques of gameplay to your classroom using strategies that work with and enhance (rather than replace) your current curriculum. Part I debunks common myths and fears about gamification and explains why and how game-based learning effectively engages students in any subject or grade level. Part II focuses on how you can empower students to take control of their learning. You’ll also learn all about the different kinds of players in your classroom—and how to inspire them to set and achieve big goals. Part III is an all-in-one treasure chest, tool box, and field guide. Packed with ideas and examples that can be applied or adapted to any classroom—from badges and points, to mini-games and yearlong adventures—this is a resource you’ll return to again and again. Join the adventure with EXPLORE LIKE A PIRATE and discover how gamification can enrich your classroom!

    The logical response is to ban electronics in class. But acclaimed educator James M. Lang argues that this solution obscures a deeper problem: how we teach is often at odds with how students learn. Classrooms are designed to force students into long periods of intense focus, but emerging science reveals that the brain is wired for distraction. We learn best when able to actively seek and synthesize new information.In Distracted, Lang rethinks the practice of teaching, revealing how educators can structure their classrooms less as distraction-free zones and more as environments where they can actively cultivate their students' attention.Brimming with ideas and grounded in new research, Distracted offers an innovative plan for the most important lesson of all: how to learn.

    Education is the platform for our success or failure, but is our system still fit for purpose? Will our children be equipped to face the challenges the future holds: the rapidly changing employment patterns and the global environmental, economic and social crises ahead of us? Or will our children grow up to resent their school years and blame them for their unfulfilled potential and achievement?Creating Tomorrow's Schools Today explores these questions in the context of early schooling and primary education, presents powerful arguments for change and highlights strategies that offer a solution.