Kafele begins a powerful examination of what it takes to make a school community achieve the greatest success in the classroom and beyond.In The Principal 50: Critical Leadership Questions for Inspiring Schoolwide Excellence, Kafele, a veteran school administrator, guides motivated school leaders through 50 self-reflection exercises designed to yield a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the work that they do. Along with many other insights, this book shows how best toInspire and motivate students, teachers, and other school staff to approach their work with vigor and purpose;Ensure that all students, regardless of color, creed, or origin, are valued and represented in the school culture;Focus mission and vision statements to address students' most critical needs and integrate shared values and objectives into the fabric of the school; andEngage parents and other community members so that they feel a stake in the school's success.Brimming with passion, written from the heart, and informed by hard-earned experience, this transformative book is essential reading for principals and other building-level administrators determined to reinvigorate their practice, revitalize their staff, and—most importantly—guarantee the strongest outcomes for students.

    Take a peek into an effective workshop-based classroom and discover how you can enhance adolescents' technical and creative abilities in reading, writing, and thinking.

    Engaging and accessible, Life on the Tenure Track will delight and enlighten faculty, graduate students, and administrators alike.

    But where do they go to find honest, practical answers to questions such as: Can I afford it? Or, how will my child make friends without going to school? Look no further. This invaluable guidebook—completely updated to include the 101 most important homeschooling concerns—answers all those questions and more. Inside, you'll learn: ·Methods of motivating, teaching, and testing homeschooled children ·The latest on the growing use of distance-learning tools ·Ways to homeschool your special-needs child ·The differences between homeschooling younger children and teenagers Drawing from the collective wisdom and experience of homeschooling's most respected voices, The Homeschooling Book of Answers is your essential guide to this widely popular—and flexible—educational approach. "I can't imagine a more helpful book on homeschooling—a happy marriage of the realistic with the idealistic, the passionate with the practical."—George Leonard, author, Education and Ecstasy"Of the many books on home education that have come across my desk, this is the most usable for the beginning homeschooler."—Jerry Mintz, Director, Alternative Education Resource Organization"Provides useful information that demystifies and makes accessible the homeschooling experience."—Marty Layne, author of Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide to Homeschooling

    You don't even have to be able to draw. Just put the child before the chart.Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz Listen to an interview with Marjorie and Kristi, the Chartchums, on Education Talk Radio.Commercially available charts leave you hanging? Want the secret to jump-off-the-wall charts that stick with kids? Trust Smarter Charts.Did you ever want to know:What do great charts look like? How many is too many? Where are the best places for them in my classroom? How long do I keep them? How do I know if they are working? Then you'll want to meet Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz, the Chartchums. They struggled with the same questions, and Smarter Charts shares not only the answers, but the best practices they've discovered as well. Amp up the power of your charts with tips on design and language, instructional use, and self-assessment. Even better, discover surprising strategies that deepen engagement, strengthen retention, and heighten independence-all by involving students in chart making.Packed with full-color sample charts from real classrooms, Smarter Charts shares simple, brain-based strategies proven to make your classroom an even more active, effective space for literacy instruction and classroom management.

     CollegeHumor.com is the National Lampoon of its generation. Since its creation in early 2000, the Web site has grown to become the nation’s most recognized comedy brand for young people. With eight million unique visitors a month, quarterly revenues surpassing $1.2 million, and a successful line of merchandise (from T-shirts to novelties)—not to mention a deal with Paramount to create and brand movies with CollegeHumor’s imprimatur—CollegeHumor is truly a franchise in the making. The CollegeHumor Guide to College is a laugh-out-loud depiction of the college experience. Written primarily by two of CollegeHumor’s most popular columnists, Ethan Trex and Streeter Seidell, this guide features all-new material not found on the Web site. It also includes helpful advice—the kind you probably won’t hear from a college counselor—on an array of subjects, such as food, clothing, parents, dating, sex, drinking, and roommates. Filled with outrageous illustrations, this edgy and irreverent book will be indispensable to all present and future undergraduates.

    Under siege from commercial pressures and technological innovation, the media are retreating into an entertainment frame that has little tolerance for complex social and economic issues. In turn, politicians and parties are adapting their behaviour to suit the new rules of the game -- to such an extent that the contest of ideas is being supplanted by the contest for laughs.''The two key rules that now govern the practice of Australian politics are: (1) Look like you're doing something; and (2) Don't offend anyone who matters. These imperatives are a direct consequence of the interaction between media coverage and political activity -- the aggregated outcome of countless individuals acting rationally in pursuit of their own interests. The sideshow syndrome, the overall result of these actions, is a direct threat to the nation's well-being.'When Lindsay Tanner resigned in 2010 as the ALP's federal minister for finance and member for Melbourne, having had an 18-year career as an MP, he notably managed to retire with his reputation for integrity intact. In Sideshow, he lays bare the relentless decline of political reporting and political behaviour that occurred during his career. Part memoir, part analysis, and part critique, Sideshow is a unique book that tackles the rot which has set in at the heart of Australian public life.

    With insightful commentary, she recalls her own trials as a student and teacher in our industrial, one-size-fits-all educational system. Then she encounters the needs of her young son. Finding a fit is like trying to stuff an odd-shaped child into a square hole. The love for her child propels her on a journey that sweeps her own children, and the children around her, into a learning environment driven by joy, exuberance and passion instead of heartbreak and defeat. Unable to read until ages nine and ten, they entered college at eleven and twelve, became systems administrators, chief technology officers, trained with the Berlin Opera and Hamburg Ballet, created digital images used in the film "Lord of the Rings," presented software solutions to TRW, Pac Bell, Industrial Light & Magic, NSA, Sony, and more, all before the ages of eighteen. The Call to Brilliance shows parents and educators how to redirect children's challenges into strengths, discover children's interests, fuel their interests into passions, and their passions into brilliance.

    Here is a brief overview of each part: Part 1, Seeing the Big Picture Connections First, defines curriculum in terms of rigor, provides the background of this model, connects curriculum design to the big picture of standards, assessments, instruction, and data practices, previews the step-by-step design sequence, and introduces end-of-chapter reader assignments. Part 2, Building the Foundation for Designing Curricular Units, explains the five steps that must first be taken to lay the foundation upon which to build the curricular units of study, and provides explicit guidelines for applying each step. Part 3, Designing the Curricular Unit of Study From Start to Finish, gives the nuts and bolts directions for designing a rigorous curricular unit of study, from beginning to end, and concludes with an overview of how to implement the unit in the classroom or instructional program. Formatively assessing students along the way, educators analyze resulting student data to diagnose student learning needs and then adjust ongoing instruction accordingly. Part 4, Organizing, Monitoring, and Sustaining Implementation Efforts, addresses the role of administrators in beginning and continuing the work of implementation. These final three chapters provide first-person narra - tives and advice to administrators from administrators who have personally led the implementation and sustainability efforts of curriculum redesign and related practices within their own school systems. I have endeavored to pull together all of the elements necessary for designing a rigorous curriculum, to position these elements in a sequential order, and to provide a step-by-step approach for constructing each one. My hope is that this road map will not only show you the way to design your own curriculum, but also allow you the flexibility of customizing it to fit your own purpose and needs. As with the realization of any lofty vision, it will take a great deal of time, thought, energy, and collaboration to create and revise a single curriculum, let alone multiple curricula. The best advice I can offer is to regard whatever you produce as a continual work in progress, to be accomplished over one, two, or three years, or even longer. As my friend and colleague Robert Kuklis points out, curriculum designers shape and modify the process as they move through it. It is important that they know this is not a rigid, prescriptive procedure, but rather an opportunity for learning, adapting, and improving. This preserves fidelity to the process, encourages flexibility, and promotes local ownership. Whenever people s spirits need lifting because the work seems so demanding, remind everyone that it is a process, not a one-time event. You are creating something truly significant a comprehensive body of work that is going to serve your educators, students, and parents for years to come!"

    But what he also had was unsupervised access to one of the finest special collections libraries in the country. In October 1990 Kenyon College hired David Breithaupt as its library’s part-time evening supervisor. In April 2000 he was fired after a Georgia librarian discovered him selling a letter by Flannery O’Connor on eBay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg: for the past ten years, Breithaupt had been browsing the collection, taking from it whatever rare books, manuscripts, and documents caught his eye—Flannery O'Connor letters, W.H. Auden annotated typescripts, a Thomas Pynchon manuscript, and much, much more. It was a large-scale, long-term pillaging of Kenyon College’s most precious works. After he was caught, the American justice system looked like it was about to disappoint the college the way it had countless rare book crime victims before—but Kenyon refused to let this happen.

    Many -- politicians, media and citizens alike -- seem to assume the goal of government is to keep the economy moving. Here, Nic Marks argues that the blind pursuit of economic growth has created an environment that actually undermines our happiness. He offers some bold suggestions on how nations and people can return to a shared common purpose: nurturing well-being.About the author: Nic Marks is the founder of the Centre for Well-Being, an independent think tank at the New Economics Foundation in London.

    Amateur writers, housewives, and even high school dropouts have cashed in with astonishingly simple best-sellers. This guide, by best-selling author Marc McCutcheon, shows the reader how to get in on the action by identifying lucrative publishing niches and filling them, not once, not twice, but year after year.

     New things matter: Clothes. Parties. Boys. Suddenly being liked and being popular don't mean the same thing. Your parents get completely bizarre when the subject of dating comes up. A friend you've had forever stabs you in the back for no good reason. Everybody you know seems to feel free to comment on your constantly changing body. Drugs and alcohol go from being what you see "bad" kids doing on television shows to what you see your friends doing when no adults are around. How are you supposed to deal? Since life doesn't come with a set of instructions, it helps to turn to people who have been through the stuff that you're facing. Even parents can help. (Really!) In Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal (so they can look up your skirt), former teenage boy -- and current dad of two daughters -- Philip Van Munching helps guide you through some of life's most confusing topics. From Beauty to Grief, from Sex to Fate, Van Munching covers the things you most want to know about and, in his wise, warm, and funny way, offers advice on how you can become the young woman you most want to be.

    . . a book that will appeal to everyone who has ever choked down the pre-packaged, bargain-basement camp food (or gone bankrupt buying the good stuff). --Canoe & Kayak. . . if you're on the lookout for a way to bring real meals to the field, [this book] might have the answer. --Field & StreamLife in the outdoors revolves around food--cooking it, eating it, packing it, carrying it. We even fantasize about it, especially after a week of eating store-bought provisions. This book is all about fulfulling those food fantasies and avoiding those expensive disappointments. Trail Food tells you how to remove water from food, to make it lighter and longer-lasting, without removing its taste. Learn to plan menus and prepare meals just like the ones you left behind, using fresh foods from your garden or market, prepared and seasoned the way you like them.Why fantasize when you can have the real thing?

    Are cooked mussels safe ONLY if they are open?Why does alcohol make the opposite sex more attractive?Why does washing your hands ease your conscience, make it easier to live with hard decisions, and make you more tolerant?Why does lightning strike the same place twice (and more)?Do babies get more illnesses when they are "teething"?What is the science behind people spontaneously bursting into flame?And what's more hygienic - an air blower or a paper towel?