In my last post I urged teachers to start reading about the topic of education. I know...I bring up bad memories of grad school for many of you when I say read about the topic of education but we really have to! Besides the fact that there are some great books out there that address the everyday problems and joys we encounter in our profession, reading these books helps us to ground our practice in theory and proven research. Let me repeat myself-grounding what we do every day, every hour, in the theory behind it is a key component to being considered professionals. Think about it-without theory and philosophy guiding why we do the things we do, we really become not much more than tacticians. It would be very easy to replace us with inexperienced men and women who majored in the same subject matter they will teach, but have no ed school background, and contrary to how that sounds, it's not a good thing. Are there some silly classes in ed school? No doubt. If you have an MBA is it possible you took some silly classes? You bet but no one ever tells you that degree is worthless. So yes, reading is the first step towards reclaiming our profession and our collective passion. I'll save talk about building conversations and research for the next time. In the meantime, here are some books I love.
The Courage to Teach-Parker Palmer; Literacy and Democracy; Teaching-Making Sense of an Uncertain Craft; anything by Jonathon Kozol; anything by Nel Noddings; Re-Thinking Schools-An Agenda for Change; Lives on the Edge-Valerie Polakow; A Hope in the Unseen-Ron Suskind; And Still We Rise-Miles Corwin; Real Boys-William Pollack. So many books..so little time. Howl On.
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