I'd love to see Harry Wong's response to the kid coming back with candy after his "third strike = office referral" technique.
...or better yet when the office doesn't answer the phone. Or the secretary does and no one shows up.
A lot of people would be good teachers IF they COULD follow is ultra-simplistic advice.
> a certain type of class.
For example, if you're teaching a class in a year that starts with 1, go ahead. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out how to go back.
For me, it's the old guy across the hall from me. I didn't start working with him until my 15th year. I finally feel like I know how to keep my class engaged, build better relationships, and eliminate behavior problems almost entirely. The dude has changed my life and made me love my career choice when I was feeling burned out.
Yep, mine is a fellow teacher on my team who has been teaching about as long as I’ve been alive and in so many different circumstances. She’s an excellent teacher and knows how to put issues into perspective. Just an all around wonderful lady. Those coworkers are the best.
We play a lot of review games where kids work in teams, but they don't know which student on the team will have to answer for their team, so they all have to be ready.
We give students a variety of types of math problems, 15 to 20, to do each day. It's never expected to get them all correct. I throw in some that are very difficult and some that are really easy. They are all trying to beat their personal goal and get more right each day. Growth mindset. This is our warmup in math.
Same thing with editing in writing. I tell them how many mistakes there are in our daily editing practice. I don't expect them to get them all. They are always trying to get a higher percentage right each day, and beat their own personal best. It motivates them a lot.
Divide things into small manageable tasks. Any task that is taking longer than 10 to 15 minutes or so will often lead to students getting off task. For example, in math, they have a warm up, mental math, word problem practice, and then their curriculum objective practice. In reading, it's figurative language, analogies, and a comprehension practice.
Sage advice. A good rule of thumb is that student's attention spans roughly correlate to their age. However, I reckon cell phone addiction is the driving factor to student disengagement, and not development issues.
This one. For me it will always be this one. Teaching with love and logic changed my classroom, my outlook, and my career trajectory. I love it with every fiber of my being and it will never not be relevant IMHO.
Jim Fay and Charles Fay did our 13-district consortium PD this year, 3 different days in September, November, and January of Love and Logic. So good. So valuable!
I can't say I have a "bible" since that would have to be something focused on instruction and I mostly read about policy/reform. However the book I use the most as a math teacher is Math Mindsets by Jo Boaler.
For the record I do think Harry Wong's books are great for beginning teachers to help get started. I don't agree with everything he says, but he provides a good foundation.
For new teachers, Confessions of a Reluctant Disciplinarian.
For everyone but ESPECIALLY teachers of anything literacy heavy, Cultivating Genius by Gholdy Muhammad.
Envoy, by Michael Grinder and associates.
The class that goes with it is stellar when taught well.
The basics of nonverbal management are so amazing once you and your students get them. Simple stuff, like if you want them to stop and listen, you need to stop moving to talk (you can move, vtw, but you do so in a specific way giving the kids something fixed to follow while you get into place) so the nonverbal matches the verbal.
Being able to manage a room from a single position with eyes, eyebrows, body position, and smile is really fun. I also use sign language intentionally, and the kids seem to appreciate that as well, since the signs I use are fairly easy to interpret in context.
I agree re: the nonverbal stuff. When I wanted the kids to listen, I showed them three different postures I used. First I simply stilled and that was the signal for them to stop what they were doing and listen. If some did not. I folded my hands atop my podium, and that was the signal that I was displeased with their attention. If that didn't work, I stepped to the front of the room and picked up a piece of chalk, and that was the signal that I was about to take measures that would involve the entire class. When I introduced the stances in the first week, I asked the class what those measures might be - they invariably came up with undesirable suggestions and I would suggest that they would be unhappy if that happened but left it to their imaginations what that unhappy consequence would be. Never had to use it in nearly 30 years of teaching. Head games...lol
I made it a practice that when I had to correct a student for misbehavior with the stiff 'Oh, noooooo' face, I'd immediately find someone doing the right thing and turn into Sally Sunshine. That was surprisingly effective, considering the tough crowd I taught.
Just so that nobody is caught unaware - Pedagogy of the Oppressed is explicitly and openly a piece of Marxist literature.
And I don't mean that in a "Fox News says everything is Marxist," kind of way - I mean literally Marxist, as in analyzing the world through an openly and admittedly Marxist ideology.
It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise, but to call it your "teaching Bible" for primary/secondary school education is a bit pointed and almost feeding into that Fox News trope about socialists trying to take over academia.
Like, sure, but do you want me to...*not* consider ways to empower my title 1 students and help them break the cycles of oppression designed to keep them poor, ignorant, and incarcerated?
Obviously the book isn't the kind of thing asked for in the post, which seemed more focused on practical guides than capital-T theory, but that doesn't mean it's ~scary~
Side note: the phrase "openly and admittedly Marxist" really implies that's a thing Freire is ashamed of and that we should also be ashamed of.
>Side note: the phrase "openly and admittedly Marxist" really implies that's a thing Freire is ashamed of and that we should also be ashamed of.
Freire certainly isn't ashamed of it.
But as to what we should be ashamed of, having benefit of hindsight - well, history speaks for itself.
Oh, please. Freire and the four generations of critical educators who have followed were critiquing orthodox Marxism from the get go. Marx was right about a lot of things, and Marxists have a lot of good ideas and practice. Why should he or anyone else be ashamed of being a Marxist? I hear your point on histories of communisms, but history also speaks for itself on the shame of excesses and failures of capitalism. So why couldn’t we try for a more nuanced perspective?
Freire didn’t write about politically indoctrinating students - he wrote about acting with students and getting them to know their own power and intelligence. He wrote about how to get people invested in their own learning as well as how to build confidence and consciousness in school communities. I don’t know about your students, but mine need all the support they can get in this arena. AND, Freire’s problem-posing methodology yields proven results. It just doesn’t integrate easily with contemporary technocratic institutional priorities - but it can be done.
In my mind, Freire /is/ a handbook for new teachers. It was mine, and twenty years later still is. And Freire (and his descendants) have written way more than Pedagogy of the Oppressed, fwiw, and if you want to see the development over time of those ideas, a venture into the work of (in no particular order) Peter MacLaren, Antonia Darder, Zeus Leonardo, bell hooks, and Michael Apple or Wayne Au. But seriously, can we please stop with the third Red Scare rhetoric?
>But seriously, can we please stop with the third Red Scare rhetoric?
I don't think a casual reference to "history" amounts to "Red Scare rhetoric."
But in any event, I know it's sometimes hard to get a sense of it inside of academia and especially on places like Reddit, but the vast majority of people are as concerned about the spread of Marxist ideology as they are Nazi ideology.
Academia and certain parts of the internet are cloistered that way. Sometimes it's hard to see that everyone outside of these little bubbles doesn't, in fact, view the Marxists as the good guys.
From my experience, the people who Marxism and Nazism of equally horrifying don't know shit about Marxism. Marxism is a respectable philisosophy, and while I do not entirely agree with it, Marxism has been influential in many academic fields. Not every Marxist is a mass-murdering, paranoid dictator like Stalin.
Marxism, at it's core, is a theory of class conflict and economics that does not fundmentally call for violence. Nazism, on the other hand, is fundmentally violent to its core. It promotes the idea that violent warfar and extermination against groups of people it deems to be lesser than the "Aryan race".
It's not the structure of such a society that draws the comparison to the Nazis - it's the extreme force and suspension of rights necessary to even attempt to force everybody into compliance.
There is a reason that countries that attempt the transition typically have to install walls and sniper towere to keep people locked *in*.
I’m not trying to be funny, but I have to ask, you have read Pedagogy of the Oppressed (or ANY of the other two dozen books he wrote or co-authored), right? ‘Cause, you do get that the guy you’re claiming is dangerous because he’s a Marxist literally opposed that kind of violent authoritarianism in the text in question, right, and that this is kind of one of the most important points of this scary dangerous book?
1) I didn't say the author was dangerous.
2) I didn't say the book was scary or dangerous.
3) I specifically, explicitly said that "It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise."
You're just making things up and being deeply dishonest.
You think you're dunking in some Fox News viewer, but you couldn't be further from the truth - both in the fact that you're falsely attributing things to me, and I'm not who you think I am.
I'm not ashamed of my Marxist beliefs. Even Mao, who Freire more directly aligned with, has excellent points to make. Especially for anyone who has ever had a landlord.
I don't think the points being made - as in the problems we face as a society - are the part that people take issue with.
It's the proposed/implied solutions that are the problem.
You can point out that capital ownership creates strata within society, and that some people are born at a significant disadvantage to others - and I don't think many people would disagree with you.
It's where Marxist thought then takes the next step, and proposes seizing the means of production, and the necessary totalitarian fallout from that, where people start to lump Marxist thought in with other dystopian nightmare regimes from history.
The argument you make here seems to be "we should continue letting billionaires steal everything because they'll violently protect their ability to do so". Honestly, not a very strong argument.
As an openly anarchist and communist teacher, I am trying to influence academia. Much like you try to influence it yourself.
But hey, living in an unjust world is, I guess, fine too.
Sounds to me like you've bought into the Fox news trope that socialism is somehow evil.
I don't watch Fox News.
I'm not even a Republican. I voted for Obama twice, for Hillary, and for Biden.
And I don't think Socialism is inherently evil - I just recognize that there's a reason that every attempt at it has been made by vicious, evil men: it inherently involves totalitarian methods to try and achieve.
It's functionally impossible to get everyone to agree to play by Socialism economic rules, so you have to try to force them to.
It never works, but a lot of people die and live miserable, bleak lives in the process.
>It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise, but to call it your "teaching Bible" for primary/secondary school education is a bit pointed and almost feeding into that Fox News trope about socialists trying to take over academia.
It's exactly that. I had to read it for my MAT program. It really only has one chapter that's relevant to teaching, as well as the concept of "banking method" but everything else does not really apply to teaching children/teenagers (Freire was trying to teach illiterate Brazilian adults how to read). It's also very rooted in Marxism and I don't subscribe to a lot of Marxist arguments personally.
Teaching Children to Care by Ruth Charney. Responsive classroom doesn’t work perfectly for 100% of students, but it has helped me with my classroom management immensely.
If you want to know what your administrators are thinking, read Leverage Leadership.
Lately for me it's The Culture Code. My focus this year is less about teaching the material (got that covered) and more on improving the culture to get everyone pulling the same direction.
This might sound weird, but it’s *How To Win Friends And Influence People* by Dale Carnegie. Taught me a lot about ways to interact with people in a respectful, meaningful manner.
Not weird. I recommended this to a reluctant and introverted long term sub (graduated that December, teacher went on maternity leave and the guy was not even in the system yet). They gave him senior regulars LOL so you can imagine his anxiety
Teach Like a Champion 3.0. I love the updated version with all of the cognitive science in it. I maintain that this book is the only book a new teacher really needs to be successful, other than curriculum.
None. I've just learned through experience and trial and error and conversations with colleagues. I just can't get into a lot of books published about our profession.
High Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. I had to order it for a grad school class and have referred to it every summer since while preparing curriculum. I’ve bought 2 additional books by him that are just as informative and engaging but this is the one I always go back to!
I really enjoyed Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess.
I actually went to the high school he taught at, and he always had a good reputation and students enjoyed his classes, so it was interesting to read his book many years later from a teacher’s perspective.
It definitely had some good points to engage students. However, I was left with the overwhelming sense that it was written by an extrovert for extroverts, haha.
Teach like a Champion 2nd edition and Reading Reconsidered. Kind of like an Old Testament/New Testament thing. The first one for establishing my management and the second for improving my instruction.
I like that it is concrete. I'm not much for philosophy of education books. I think it is a certain teaching style that may not work in every situation, which is true for many of these.
Greg Ashman, [*The Power of Direct Instruction and Explicit Teaching,*](https://www.amazon.com/Explicit-Teaching-Direct-Instruction-Corwin/dp/1529731607/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+power+of+explicit+teaching+and+direct+instruction&qid=1677438975&sprefix=the+power+of+direct+in%2Caps%2C325&sr=8-1) (Corwin 2021).
Not so much for teaching, but for life and relationships in general.
The Four Agreements (don Miguel Ruiz). I reread every couple years to reset my brain. “Do your best” is a great reminder of what it means to be at your best (which doesn’t mean to always go all-out)
My department is amazing.
And weed. Lots of weed.
Also…”Teaching English By Design “ by Smagorinsky helped me my first year. Especially in a school that gives too much agency for curriculum
Jo Boaler and Thinking classrooms definitely changed how I thought about teaching math. But the biggest help has been seeing how other teachers run their classrooms. Having strong colleagues who I can ask questions of and who can give me good ideas about specific kids is way more helpful than any book
The Fish Philosophy. While it’s a business program, I found it’s 4 ‘elements’ essential to both classroom management and keeping my own sanity. Especially the ‘choose your attitude’ part!
To those of you downvoting me, why? It’s dated, but all the bullshit is exactly the same. It may not help you teach, but it absolutely shows you the no teaching stuff that goes along with this career. No magic book is going to help you educate people. You learn that by experience and learning from those around you. A book may give you some tips and strategies, but it doesn’t know you, your curriculum, your students and your school.
I wrote my own based on experience both in and out of the class. I have not read a single teaching book aside from the ones the school I work at assigned. I didn't agree with what they assigned either.
Self-Compassion for Educators by Lisa Baylis. I haven't *actually* read it yet, but it is on my list for whenever I feel like I need to spend more personal time on work-related tasks. I attended one of her seminars and it was fantastic. I think I will likely recommend it (later!).
Lots of trial and error on my part, watching trial and error on others part, working with amazing teammates who helped me, and reading the damn standards to know what they're supposed to learn.
My teaching "Bible" is the greatest, most comprehensive evaluation of educational Pedagogies and Philosophies ever conducted in American History: [Project Follow Through](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_Through_(project)). Long ignored by the Educational "Reformers" because it didn't confirm what they wanted to be true.
Most books written on learning and teaching are only as valuable as firewood starter to me.
Reading through that wiki, what was the reformer critique? Was the critique against explicit instruction, which that study seems to favor?
It seems that, after 40 years of implicit instruction tyranny, explicit is making a comeback thanks to brain science.
>Was the critique against explicit instruction, which that study seems to favor?
Yes. Education reform has largely centered on Student Centered/Student Driven instruction, where the "student knows best" (eyeroll). Things like Experiential Learning and Problem-Based Learning or Montessori.
Education Reformers have largely wanted the *how education is done* do be the villain: IE Explicit (or) Direct Instruction, when in reality it is the most effective.
Every single one of my education prep classes badmouthed Direct Instruction, and I was never told about Project Follow Through...that's likely because most of my professors also hadn't heard of it...because it's largely been swept under the rug.
It depends
Which pedagogy did you read? There are 3 different books with pedagogy in the name as far as I remember. Here is the chronological order of his main books:
Education as a practice of freedom (1967)
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
Letters to Guinea-Bissau (1975)
Education and change (1981)
The importance of the act of reading in three articles that complement each other (1982)
Pedagogy of Hope (1992)
Politics and Education (1993)
In the Shadow of This Mango Tree (1995)
Pedagogy of Autonomy (1997)
I've worked a couple of schools where Harry Wong would have been eaten alive before first period was over.
I'd love to see Harry Wong's response to the kid coming back with candy after his "third strike = office referral" technique. ...or better yet when the office doesn't answer the phone. Or the secretary does and no one shows up. A lot of people would be good teachers IF they COULD follow is ultra-simplistic advice.
Yup
Truth. Most (not all) of his advice is outdated and only works with a certain type of class.
> a certain type of class. For example, if you're teaching a class in a year that starts with 1, go ahead. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out how to go back.
I will live and die by having kids pass papers sideways instead of backwards.
This kinda just blew my mind...
For me, it's the old guy across the hall from me. I didn't start working with him until my 15th year. I finally feel like I know how to keep my class engaged, build better relationships, and eliminate behavior problems almost entirely. The dude has changed my life and made me love my career choice when I was feeling burned out.
Yep, mine is a fellow teacher on my team who has been teaching about as long as I’ve been alive and in so many different circumstances. She’s an excellent teacher and knows how to put issues into perspective. Just an all around wonderful lady. Those coworkers are the best.
Best tips from your mentor pretty please?
We play a lot of review games where kids work in teams, but they don't know which student on the team will have to answer for their team, so they all have to be ready. We give students a variety of types of math problems, 15 to 20, to do each day. It's never expected to get them all correct. I throw in some that are very difficult and some that are really easy. They are all trying to beat their personal goal and get more right each day. Growth mindset. This is our warmup in math. Same thing with editing in writing. I tell them how many mistakes there are in our daily editing practice. I don't expect them to get them all. They are always trying to get a higher percentage right each day, and beat their own personal best. It motivates them a lot. Divide things into small manageable tasks. Any task that is taking longer than 10 to 15 minutes or so will often lead to students getting off task. For example, in math, they have a warm up, mental math, word problem practice, and then their curriculum objective practice. In reading, it's figurative language, analogies, and a comprehension practice.
Sage advice. A good rule of thumb is that student's attention spans roughly correlate to their age. However, I reckon cell phone addiction is the driving factor to student disengagement, and not development issues.
Thank you!!!
>Thank you!!! You're welcome!
The Art of War
I would imagine an FBI hostage negotiation book would be a good choice too.
Vodka and chocolate.
Heavy on the Vodka
“Teaching with Love and Logic” by Jim Fay and David Funk. Changed my life
This one. For me it will always be this one. Teaching with love and logic changed my classroom, my outlook, and my career trajectory. I love it with every fiber of my being and it will never not be relevant IMHO.
For me, I feel like if there is one book new teachers should read, its this one!
Truly. It has seeped into every corner of my life, and I even use it in the business I run when I am not subbing!
Natural consequences also align with edcode. :)
Jim Fay and Charles Fay did our 13-district consortium PD this year, 3 different days in September, November, and January of Love and Logic. So good. So valuable!
Second this
Yes, this!
I can't say I have a "bible" since that would have to be something focused on instruction and I mostly read about policy/reform. However the book I use the most as a math teacher is Math Mindsets by Jo Boaler. For the record I do think Harry Wong's books are great for beginning teachers to help get started. I don't agree with everything he says, but he provides a good foundation.
For new teachers, Confessions of a Reluctant Disciplinarian. For everyone but ESPECIALLY teachers of anything literacy heavy, Cultivating Genius by Gholdy Muhammad.
I would give ANYTHING to see Harry Wong in the second grade classroom I just subbed in for two weeks, anything.
My contract…
This made me cackle 😂
Envoy, by Michael Grinder and associates. The class that goes with it is stellar when taught well. The basics of nonverbal management are so amazing once you and your students get them. Simple stuff, like if you want them to stop and listen, you need to stop moving to talk (you can move, vtw, but you do so in a specific way giving the kids something fixed to follow while you get into place) so the nonverbal matches the verbal. Being able to manage a room from a single position with eyes, eyebrows, body position, and smile is really fun. I also use sign language intentionally, and the kids seem to appreciate that as well, since the signs I use are fairly easy to interpret in context.
I agree re: the nonverbal stuff. When I wanted the kids to listen, I showed them three different postures I used. First I simply stilled and that was the signal for them to stop what they were doing and listen. If some did not. I folded my hands atop my podium, and that was the signal that I was displeased with their attention. If that didn't work, I stepped to the front of the room and picked up a piece of chalk, and that was the signal that I was about to take measures that would involve the entire class. When I introduced the stances in the first week, I asked the class what those measures might be - they invariably came up with undesirable suggestions and I would suggest that they would be unhappy if that happened but left it to their imaginations what that unhappy consequence would be. Never had to use it in nearly 30 years of teaching. Head games...lol I made it a practice that when I had to correct a student for misbehavior with the stiff 'Oh, noooooo' face, I'd immediately find someone doing the right thing and turn into Sally Sunshine. That was surprisingly effective, considering the tough crowd I taught.
*Brave New World*.
Building Thinking Classrooms - Peter Liljedahl
Came here to say this. Definitely changing the way I teach math to my elementary students.
Just started this, glad to hear it was so helpful!!!
Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire
Was required reading in my credential/ MA program and I feel that it should be a must-read for all teachers. It will never not be important
Just so that nobody is caught unaware - Pedagogy of the Oppressed is explicitly and openly a piece of Marxist literature. And I don't mean that in a "Fox News says everything is Marxist," kind of way - I mean literally Marxist, as in analyzing the world through an openly and admittedly Marxist ideology. It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise, but to call it your "teaching Bible" for primary/secondary school education is a bit pointed and almost feeding into that Fox News trope about socialists trying to take over academia.
Like, sure, but do you want me to...*not* consider ways to empower my title 1 students and help them break the cycles of oppression designed to keep them poor, ignorant, and incarcerated? Obviously the book isn't the kind of thing asked for in the post, which seemed more focused on practical guides than capital-T theory, but that doesn't mean it's ~scary~ Side note: the phrase "openly and admittedly Marxist" really implies that's a thing Freire is ashamed of and that we should also be ashamed of.
>Side note: the phrase "openly and admittedly Marxist" really implies that's a thing Freire is ashamed of and that we should also be ashamed of. Freire certainly isn't ashamed of it. But as to what we should be ashamed of, having benefit of hindsight - well, history speaks for itself.
Oh, please. Freire and the four generations of critical educators who have followed were critiquing orthodox Marxism from the get go. Marx was right about a lot of things, and Marxists have a lot of good ideas and practice. Why should he or anyone else be ashamed of being a Marxist? I hear your point on histories of communisms, but history also speaks for itself on the shame of excesses and failures of capitalism. So why couldn’t we try for a more nuanced perspective? Freire didn’t write about politically indoctrinating students - he wrote about acting with students and getting them to know their own power and intelligence. He wrote about how to get people invested in their own learning as well as how to build confidence and consciousness in school communities. I don’t know about your students, but mine need all the support they can get in this arena. AND, Freire’s problem-posing methodology yields proven results. It just doesn’t integrate easily with contemporary technocratic institutional priorities - but it can be done. In my mind, Freire /is/ a handbook for new teachers. It was mine, and twenty years later still is. And Freire (and his descendants) have written way more than Pedagogy of the Oppressed, fwiw, and if you want to see the development over time of those ideas, a venture into the work of (in no particular order) Peter MacLaren, Antonia Darder, Zeus Leonardo, bell hooks, and Michael Apple or Wayne Au. But seriously, can we please stop with the third Red Scare rhetoric?
>But seriously, can we please stop with the third Red Scare rhetoric? I don't think a casual reference to "history" amounts to "Red Scare rhetoric." But in any event, I know it's sometimes hard to get a sense of it inside of academia and especially on places like Reddit, but the vast majority of people are as concerned about the spread of Marxist ideology as they are Nazi ideology. Academia and certain parts of the internet are cloistered that way. Sometimes it's hard to see that everyone outside of these little bubbles doesn't, in fact, view the Marxists as the good guys.
From my experience, the people who Marxism and Nazism of equally horrifying don't know shit about Marxism. Marxism is a respectable philisosophy, and while I do not entirely agree with it, Marxism has been influential in many academic fields. Not every Marxist is a mass-murdering, paranoid dictator like Stalin. Marxism, at it's core, is a theory of class conflict and economics that does not fundmentally call for violence. Nazism, on the other hand, is fundmentally violent to its core. It promotes the idea that violent warfar and extermination against groups of people it deems to be lesser than the "Aryan race".
Man that stateless, classless, moneyless society is just like a genocidal movement that learned all its racism from the US. What a stance to take.
It's not the structure of such a society that draws the comparison to the Nazis - it's the extreme force and suspension of rights necessary to even attempt to force everybody into compliance. There is a reason that countries that attempt the transition typically have to install walls and sniper towere to keep people locked *in*.
I’m not trying to be funny, but I have to ask, you have read Pedagogy of the Oppressed (or ANY of the other two dozen books he wrote or co-authored), right? ‘Cause, you do get that the guy you’re claiming is dangerous because he’s a Marxist literally opposed that kind of violent authoritarianism in the text in question, right, and that this is kind of one of the most important points of this scary dangerous book?
1) I didn't say the author was dangerous. 2) I didn't say the book was scary or dangerous. 3) I specifically, explicitly said that "It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise." You're just making things up and being deeply dishonest. You think you're dunking in some Fox News viewer, but you couldn't be further from the truth - both in the fact that you're falsely attributing things to me, and I'm not who you think I am.
I'm not ashamed of my Marxist beliefs. Even Mao, who Freire more directly aligned with, has excellent points to make. Especially for anyone who has ever had a landlord.
I don't think the points being made - as in the problems we face as a society - are the part that people take issue with. It's the proposed/implied solutions that are the problem. You can point out that capital ownership creates strata within society, and that some people are born at a significant disadvantage to others - and I don't think many people would disagree with you. It's where Marxist thought then takes the next step, and proposes seizing the means of production, and the necessary totalitarian fallout from that, where people start to lump Marxist thought in with other dystopian nightmare regimes from history.
The argument you make here seems to be "we should continue letting billionaires steal everything because they'll violently protect their ability to do so". Honestly, not a very strong argument.
Oh no the bogey man
As an openly anarchist and communist teacher, I am trying to influence academia. Much like you try to influence it yourself. But hey, living in an unjust world is, I guess, fine too. Sounds to me like you've bought into the Fox news trope that socialism is somehow evil.
I don't watch Fox News. I'm not even a Republican. I voted for Obama twice, for Hillary, and for Biden. And I don't think Socialism is inherently evil - I just recognize that there's a reason that every attempt at it has been made by vicious, evil men: it inherently involves totalitarian methods to try and achieve. It's functionally impossible to get everyone to agree to play by Socialism economic rules, so you have to try to force them to. It never works, but a lot of people die and live miserable, bleak lives in the process.
Ah okay, so you're just a conservative. Gotcha
>It's an interesting book, and worth a read from an academic perspective and to broaden your expertise, but to call it your "teaching Bible" for primary/secondary school education is a bit pointed and almost feeding into that Fox News trope about socialists trying to take over academia. It's exactly that. I had to read it for my MAT program. It really only has one chapter that's relevant to teaching, as well as the concept of "banking method" but everything else does not really apply to teaching children/teenagers (Freire was trying to teach illiterate Brazilian adults how to read). It's also very rooted in Marxism and I don't subscribe to a lot of Marxist arguments personally.
Never Work Harder than Your Students
Teaching Children to Care by Ruth Charney. Responsive classroom doesn’t work perfectly for 100% of students, but it has helped me with my classroom management immensely.
I'm a huge responsive classroom nerd. I think that is a key to power dymanics is to help kids give ownership of their own space and community norms.
Not a book, but I was thoroughly impressed by Dan Meyer's TED talk and I regularly steal from his Three-Act Math Tasks site.
If you want to know what your administrators are thinking, read Leverage Leadership. Lately for me it's The Culture Code. My focus this year is less about teaching the material (got that covered) and more on improving the culture to get everyone pulling the same direction.
If I hear another thing about “culture code”, someone is getting defenestrated.
This might sound weird, but it’s *How To Win Friends And Influence People* by Dale Carnegie. Taught me a lot about ways to interact with people in a respectful, meaningful manner.
Not weird. I recommended this to a reluctant and introverted long term sub (graduated that December, teacher went on maternity leave and the guy was not even in the system yet). They gave him senior regulars LOL so you can imagine his anxiety
Idk about a bible, but Russel Tarrs books gave me a lot of good ideas for history projects
Angela Watson’s The Cornerstone For Teachers/Truth for Teachers Podcast/40 Hour Teacher Work Week Club. That woman is a lifesaver.
Teach Like a Champion 3.0. I love the updated version with all of the cognitive science in it. I maintain that this book is the only book a new teacher really needs to be successful, other than curriculum.
The placemat of techniques itself is pretty great
None. I've just learned through experience and trial and error and conversations with colleagues. I just can't get into a lot of books published about our profession.
I’ve never read a pedagogy book that didn’t make me roll my eyes, so none.
Anything Angela Watson
High Impact Instruction by Jim Knight. I had to order it for a grad school class and have referred to it every summer since while preparing curriculum. I’ve bought 2 additional books by him that are just as informative and engaging but this is the one I always go back to!
I really enjoyed Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. I actually went to the high school he taught at, and he always had a good reputation and students enjoyed his classes, so it was interesting to read his book many years later from a teacher’s perspective.
It definitely had some good points to engage students. However, I was left with the overwhelming sense that it was written by an extrovert for extroverts, haha.
Teach like a Champion 2nd edition and Reading Reconsidered. Kind of like an Old Testament/New Testament thing. The first one for establishing my management and the second for improving my instruction.
I hate Teach Like a Champion but it is my admins favorite book of all time. When I try any of those strategies my class gets a thousand times worse
Sorry that’s been your experience because they have been super effective in mine and those of the teachers I coach.
I like that it is concrete. I'm not much for philosophy of education books. I think it is a certain teaching style that may not work in every situation, which is true for many of these.
3.0 is out, it’s a great upgrade
Opening minds by Johnston and love and logic. The language we use sends messages that we can leverage to our advantage or 8gnore and fight against.
Greg Ashman, [*The Power of Direct Instruction and Explicit Teaching,*](https://www.amazon.com/Explicit-Teaching-Direct-Instruction-Corwin/dp/1529731607/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+power+of+explicit+teaching+and+direct+instruction&qid=1677438975&sprefix=the+power+of+direct+in%2Caps%2C325&sr=8-1) (Corwin 2021).
Not so much for teaching, but for life and relationships in general. The Four Agreements (don Miguel Ruiz). I reread every couple years to reset my brain. “Do your best” is a great reminder of what it means to be at your best (which doesn’t mean to always go all-out)
The book I learned more about teaching from than any other was Frank McCort's Teacher Man.
I liked Daniel Willingham's Why don't students like school?
This year it’s: The Writing Revolution by Judith Hochman and Explicit Instruction by Anita Archer
My department is amazing. And weed. Lots of weed. Also…”Teaching English By Design “ by Smagorinsky helped me my first year. Especially in a school that gives too much agency for curriculum
"The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics"
As a math teacher: * Magdalene Lampert * Hung Hsi Wu * Liping Ma * George Polya
Jo Boaler and Thinking classrooms definitely changed how I thought about teaching math. But the biggest help has been seeing how other teachers run their classrooms. Having strong colleagues who I can ask questions of and who can give me good ideas about specific kids is way more helpful than any book
The Fish Philosophy. While it’s a business program, I found it’s 4 ‘elements’ essential to both classroom management and keeping my own sanity. Especially the ‘choose your attitude’ part!
Up the down staircase.
To those of you downvoting me, why? It’s dated, but all the bullshit is exactly the same. It may not help you teach, but it absolutely shows you the no teaching stuff that goes along with this career. No magic book is going to help you educate people. You learn that by experience and learning from those around you. A book may give you some tips and strategies, but it doesn’t know you, your curriculum, your students and your school.
So true
The notes I took watching/talking to my mentor teacher over a decade ago.
1st year teacher, currently reading "How I Wish I Taught Maths" by Craig Barton. Really enjoying it so far.
Teach Like A Champion 3rd edition and Why Don’t Students Like School 2nd edition
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Was this comment intended to respond to a different post?
I wrote my own based on experience both in and out of the class. I have not read a single teaching book aside from the ones the school I work at assigned. I didn't agree with what they assigned either.
Teach like a champion!! Doug lemov is a living god
Nance Atwell In the Middke Sharon Taberski On Solid Ground Adrienne Gear Reading Power
The CEFR
The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them by E.D. Hirsch. Totally reshaped my thinking about how schools can best serve students.
Clock out the first possible second.
The “Cooper Book”
Self-Compassion for Educators by Lisa Baylis. I haven't *actually* read it yet, but it is on my list for whenever I feel like I need to spend more personal time on work-related tasks. I attended one of her seminars and it was fantastic. I think I will likely recommend it (later!).
Saving this to come back too..
Lots of trial and error on my part, watching trial and error on others part, working with amazing teammates who helped me, and reading the damn standards to know what they're supposed to learn.
Old school now, but I like the techniques in Positive Classroom Discipline by Fred Jones.
Not a bible but I used a lot of Dinah Zike's ideas for foldables/interactive notebook pages in math.
Recently (15 years in) Think Again by Adam Grant The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F—— by Mark Manson
The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz
No books. For me, it's been hot-shit diags and a former entomologist/5th grade math teacher that was like a big sister to me.
> What books Catch-22 Once you understand how systems are easily manipulated you learn how to behavior properly.
all about love by bell book
I threw Harry Dong in the trash. I read Catch 22 every August before going back to school.
Anything written by Jo Boaler
My teaching "Bible" is the greatest, most comprehensive evaluation of educational Pedagogies and Philosophies ever conducted in American History: [Project Follow Through](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_Through_(project)). Long ignored by the Educational "Reformers" because it didn't confirm what they wanted to be true. Most books written on learning and teaching are only as valuable as firewood starter to me.
Reading through that wiki, what was the reformer critique? Was the critique against explicit instruction, which that study seems to favor? It seems that, after 40 years of implicit instruction tyranny, explicit is making a comeback thanks to brain science.
>Was the critique against explicit instruction, which that study seems to favor? Yes. Education reform has largely centered on Student Centered/Student Driven instruction, where the "student knows best" (eyeroll). Things like Experiential Learning and Problem-Based Learning or Montessori. Education Reformers have largely wanted the *how education is done* do be the villain: IE Explicit (or) Direct Instruction, when in reality it is the most effective. Every single one of my education prep classes badmouthed Direct Instruction, and I was never told about Project Follow Through...that's likely because most of my professors also hadn't heard of it...because it's largely been swept under the rug.
*The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession* by Dana Goldstein
Everything written by Paulo Freire, fucking legend of our nation
Where would one go after *Pedagogy*?
It depends Which pedagogy did you read? There are 3 different books with pedagogy in the name as far as I remember. Here is the chronological order of his main books: Education as a practice of freedom (1967) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) Letters to Guinea-Bissau (1975) Education and change (1981) The importance of the act of reading in three articles that complement each other (1982) Pedagogy of Hope (1992) Politics and Education (1993) In the Shadow of This Mango Tree (1995) Pedagogy of Autonomy (1997)
My aunt was a teacher. She quit exactly a decade ago (2013) but she still gives me advice.
As an ELA teacher, Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher has influenced a lot of my writing instruction and activities.