This book is an open letter to teachers offering guidance and encouragement for nurturing students in ways that make teaching and learning meaningful. The authors promote an approach to teaching that fosters self-knowledge, creativity, curiosity, and an appreciation for our planet. Central to their philosophy is the question of what we humans need in order to live meaningful lives, and the answer lies in healthy relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world.

In this unique book on education, Shor develops teaching theory side-by-side with a political analysis of schooling. Drawing on the work of Paulo Freire, he offers the first practical and theoretical guide to Freirean methods for American classrooms. Central to his method is a commitment to learning through dialogue and to exploring themes from everyday life. He poses alienation and mass culture as key obstacles to learning, and establishes critical literacy as a foundation for studying any subject.

The Power to Save a Life Jacob Chastain grew up in an environment filled with drugs and violence. Inside the home that should have felt safe, fear and anxiety were the desperate norm. Stability and security eluded him as he was shuffled between family and friends that would take him in. But at school, things were different. There, day after day, year after year, Chastain's teachers saved him. Teach Me, Teacher is the true story of a childhood marked by heartache--a story that may be similar to that of the children sitting in your classroom. It's the story that shaped Jacob Chastain into the educator he is today. Lessons learned from his experiences as a child and as a growing educator offer reflections on the trials and triumphs facing teachers and students everywhere. From these lessons, we learn that one's darkest moments can ultimately lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life when someone cares enough to step in and make a difference. Written in celebration of teachers and the power of education, Teach Me, Teacher affirms that you have the power to save a life. "Jacob Chastain pours his heart out on the pages of Teach Me, Teacher by sharing his personal journey through childhood trauma. His message that "action is the antidote to suffering" is a powerful reminder to us all to do more, be more, understand more, and care more for our students." --Kim Bearden, co-founder and executive director, The Ron Clark Academy, author of Talk to Me "Teach Me, Teacher is one of the most courageous, heartbreaking, hopeful books I've ever read." --Regie Routman, author of Literacy Essentials "Jacob Chastain's raw honesty is something that we need more of in the education world." --Halee Sikorski, A Latte Learning "Teach Me, Teacher is both an uplifting memoir and a message to all of us in education of the power we have to build relationships and make a difference for all of our students." --Dr. Sue Szachowicz, senior fellow, Successful Practices Network "Jacob Chastain takes us on a transformational journey where past and present converge into possibility. His story of resilience and hope is a celebration of the impact each of us can have when professional purpose leads the way." --Dr. Mary Howard, author of Good to Great Teaching

This insightful book conveys the author's passion for communication and gets to the heart of how to do it. Discover the thrill of applying the seven proven concepts - and seeing the results! Also contains sample lesson plans. A great tool for your PDA or Desktop

"Cogent, interesting, and provocative."-from the foreword by Ann Lieberman Teaching What They Learn, Learning What They Live explores the multiple social, political, and epistemological domains that comprise learning-to-teach. Based on a study of eight beginning English teachers at four different university teacher preparation programs, this book examines the ways in which beginning teachers' personal dispositions and conceptions combines with their teacher preparation programs' professional knowledge and contexts to form their understandings of and approaches toward teaching. Brad Olsen recasts learning-to-teach as a continuous, situated identity process in which prior experiences produce deeply embedded ways of viewing the world that go on to organize current/future experience into meaning. Since experience shapes learning and everyone acquires different sets of experience, no individual teacher's knowledge is exactly like another's. Yet Olsen shows also that the process by which a teacher constructs professional knowledge is common: the what of teacher knowledge varies, but the how remains the same.

Teach Yourself To Live is a self-help classic from a very distant age. Then, as now, the self-help world was dominated by energetic Americans preaching the secrets of limitless achievement. But from the off this delightfully dry, wise and pragmatic book offers something quite different - a sober, somewhat stern, but ultimately generous guide to living in a world blighted by modernity and taxes. Nostalgic, funny and charming, this book somewhat bad-temperedly insists the reader not get ideas above his or her station - yet it ends up delivering a bracing, empowering guide to knowing yourself and living well (despite it all). Oliver Burkeman called this book "a place of stability and solid ground amid the rushing omnibuses". Full of fascinating and unexpected revelations, Teach Yourself To Live flips self-help on its head and provides a marvellous insight into the way we used to feel about life and how to live it. Since 1938, millions of people have learned to do the things they love with Teach Yourself. Welcome to the how-to guides that changed the modern world.

This memoir of professional development in action follows bestselling author Selma Wassermann from her dismal beginnings, struggling for control over her students, to enjoying the kind of teaching in which teacher and students are truly partners in the process.