![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Two More Teaching Books
Feb. 1st, 2004 02:28 pmWell, I suppose if pneumonia keeps you from teaching, you might as well spend the time reading about teaching.
11. "I Choose to Stay: A Black Teacher Refuses to Desert the Inner City," by Salome Thomas-EL.
The core of this book, and a really fascinating core it is, focuses on Thomas-EL's rebuilding of the Vaux Middle School chess team into a national championship team. His stories of the struggles and successes of his inner-city students and their travels to national competition is really enjoyable and inspiring. He really shows the advantages of going beyond the classroom. He also details an extra-help program that becomes so effective that students act up in class in order to get sent to it.
It's also a middle-school book, and after reading several elementary books -- "Essential 55" and "There Are No Shortcuts" -- it was nice to get closer to my own level. (I teach high school)
I guess I understand why the book is marketed the way it is "refuses to desert", but it's really more just about being a good teacher to kids who need you. There are a lot of great teaching lessons here, and it's really an upbeat book. It ends with him becoming an elementary school principal, but you get the strong impression that he's still going to stay in close contact with the kids.
Highly recommended.
12. "Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference," by Mark Edmundson.
An accomplished 50-year-old author examines his senior year in high school and the single teacher who turned him my "just another football jock," (my words, not his), into someone who eventually went to Bennington College, a nationally known writer and a college English professor.
This is far more literary than most books in the genre, and at times it can be a little tough to read. But it's lyrical and uplifting and written with an open soul. My guess is this is the culmination of something Edmundson has been wanting to put on paper for a long time.
Highlights for me include the fact that it's a high school book (see above) and is about a high school 20 minutes from where I live. I have been to the school a number of times to bring my daughter to swim practice and a meet, and their football team is in our league.
When we meet him, Edmundson is a player for the Mustangs and a guy who doesn't have his sights any higher than being a working guy in his hometown, which in our area is referred to as "Meffa." Really. I was announced our football game against them, and when I said, "Welcome the Meffa Mustangs," everyone understood. (Of course, I teach at Peabody, which is pronounced pea-BIDDY, not PEA-body).
Sorry. Off course.
The man who changes Edmundson's life is Frank Lears, a Harvard graduate who only teaches that one year. Edmundson's guidance counselor talks him into taking Philosophy with Lears.
That decision and Lears' provocative teaching techniques, lead -- as you can guess -- to inner and outer conflict and result in a young man who experiences an epiphany about life and takes a decidedly unexpected path.
Edmundson also examines his relationship with his father and writes lyrically about that.
It's an investment in time, but it's worth it.
11. "I Choose to Stay: A Black Teacher Refuses to Desert the Inner City," by Salome Thomas-EL.
The core of this book, and a really fascinating core it is, focuses on Thomas-EL's rebuilding of the Vaux Middle School chess team into a national championship team. His stories of the struggles and successes of his inner-city students and their travels to national competition is really enjoyable and inspiring. He really shows the advantages of going beyond the classroom. He also details an extra-help program that becomes so effective that students act up in class in order to get sent to it.
It's also a middle-school book, and after reading several elementary books -- "Essential 55" and "There Are No Shortcuts" -- it was nice to get closer to my own level. (I teach high school)
I guess I understand why the book is marketed the way it is "refuses to desert", but it's really more just about being a good teacher to kids who need you. There are a lot of great teaching lessons here, and it's really an upbeat book. It ends with him becoming an elementary school principal, but you get the strong impression that he's still going to stay in close contact with the kids.
Highly recommended.
12. "Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference," by Mark Edmundson.
An accomplished 50-year-old author examines his senior year in high school and the single teacher who turned him my "just another football jock," (my words, not his), into someone who eventually went to Bennington College, a nationally known writer and a college English professor.
This is far more literary than most books in the genre, and at times it can be a little tough to read. But it's lyrical and uplifting and written with an open soul. My guess is this is the culmination of something Edmundson has been wanting to put on paper for a long time.
Highlights for me include the fact that it's a high school book (see above) and is about a high school 20 minutes from where I live. I have been to the school a number of times to bring my daughter to swim practice and a meet, and their football team is in our league.
When we meet him, Edmundson is a player for the Mustangs and a guy who doesn't have his sights any higher than being a working guy in his hometown, which in our area is referred to as "Meffa." Really. I was announced our football game against them, and when I said, "Welcome the Meffa Mustangs," everyone understood. (Of course, I teach at Peabody, which is pronounced pea-BIDDY, not PEA-body).
Sorry. Off course.
The man who changes Edmundson's life is Frank Lears, a Harvard graduate who only teaches that one year. Edmundson's guidance counselor talks him into taking Philosophy with Lears.
That decision and Lears' provocative teaching techniques, lead -- as you can guess -- to inner and outer conflict and result in a young man who experiences an epiphany about life and takes a decidedly unexpected path.
Edmundson also examines his relationship with his father and writes lyrically about that.
It's an investment in time, but it's worth it.
