Understanding what influences the quality of teachers’ work across a career is key to building and sustaining their on-going commitment and effectiveness. Teachers’ Worlds and Work provides a new, research-informed consideration of key elements which independently and together influence teachers' work and lives: policy and workplace conditions, teacher professionalism, identity, emotions, commitment and resilience, types of professional learning and development, and the importance of the contribution to these made by high-quality leadership. In bringing these elements together, the book provides new, detailed and holistic understandings of their influence and suggests ways of building and sustaining teachers' abilities and willingness to teach to their best and well over their careers. This groundbreaking text will be essential reading for teacher educators, teachers, head teachers and academics.

In praise of the greatest job in the world... The right book at the right time: an impassioned defense of teachers and why we need them now more than ever. Teacher turned teacher’s advocate Taylor Mali inspired millions with his original poem “What Teachers Make,” a passionate and unforgettable response to a rich man at a dinner party who sneeringly asked him what teachers make. Mali’s sharp, funny, perceptive look at life in the classroom pays tribute to the joys of teaching…and explains why teachers are so vital to our society. What Teachers Make is a book that will be treasured and shared by every teacher in America—and everybody who’s ever loved or learned from one.

Teachers' Work is a highly readable and often amusing account of the reality of teachers' working lives that will give teachers themselves cause for reflection, give students a picture of the real world of teaching, and allow parents an insight into how things look from the other side of the school wall.

New Revised Edition. How can we create a just, healthy, and humane world? What is the path to developing sustainable energy, food, transportation, production, construction, and other systems? What’s the best strategy to end poverty and ensure that everyone has equal rights? How can we slow the rate of extinction and restore ecosystems? How can we learn to resolve conflicts without violence and treat other people and nonhuman animals with respect and compassion? The answer to all these questions lies with one underlying system—schooling. To create a more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world, we must reimagine education and prepare a generation to be solutionaries—young people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to create a better future. This book describes how we can (and must) transform education and teaching; create such a generation; and build such a future.

Based on rapid advances in what is known about how people learn and how to teach effectively, this important book examines the core concepts and central pedagogies that should be at the heart of any teacher education program. Stemming from the results of a commission sponsored by the National Academy of Education, Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends the creation of an informed teacher education curriculum with the common elements that represent state-of-the-art standards for the profession. Written for teacher educators in both traditional and alternative programs, university and school system leaders, teachers, staff development professionals, researchers, and educational policymakers, the book addresses the key foundational knowledge for teaching and discusses how to implement that knowledge within the classroom. Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends that, in addition to strong subject matter knowledge, all new teachers have a basic understanding of how people learn and develop, as well as how children acquire and use language, which is the currency of education. In addition, the book suggests that teaching professionals must be able to apply that knowledge in developing curriculum that attends to students' needs, the demands of the content, and the social purposes of education: in teaching specific subject matter to diverse students, in managing the classroom, assessing student performance, and using technology in the classroom.

An illustrated summary of the lives and the philosophies of twelve teachers who possessed in fullest measure those intellectual virtues which sustain civilization. Prophets in their own time, their respiration led others to more enlightened codes of living. The twelve are: -- Akhenaten -- Hermes Trismegistus -- Orpheus -- Zoroaster -- Buddha -- Confucius -- Lao-tse -- Plato -- Jesus -- Mohammed -- Padmasambhava -- Quetzalcoatl

Happy Teachers Change the World is the first official, authoritative manual of the Thich Nhat Hanh/Plum Village approach to mindfulness in education. Spanning the whole range of schools and grade levels, from preschool through higher education, these techniques are grounded in the everyday world of schools, colleges, and universities. Beginning firmly with teachers and all those working with students, including administrators, counselors, and other personnel, the Plum Village approach stresses that educators must first establish their own mindfulness practice since everything they do in the classroom will be based on that foundation. The book includes easy-to-follow, step-by-step techniques perfected by educators to teach themselves and to apply to their work with students and colleagues, along with inspirational stories of the ways in which teachers have made mindfulness practice alive and relevant for themselves and their students across the school and out into the community. The instructions in Happy Teachers Change the World are offered as basic practices taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, followed by guidance from educators using these practices in their classrooms, with ample in-class interpretations, activities, tips, and instructions. Woven throughout are stories from members of the Plum Village community around the world who are applying these teachings in their own lives and educational contexts.