Teaching Tough Topics shows teachers how to lead students to become caring citizens as they read and respond to quality children’s literature. It focuses on topics that can be challenging or sensitive, yet are significant in order to build understanding of social justice, diversity, and equity. Racism, Homophobia, Bullying, Religious Intolerance, Poverty, and Physical and Mental Challenges are just some of the themes explored. The book is rooted in the belief that by using picture books, novels, poetry, and nonfiction, teachers can enrich learning with compassion and empathy as students make connections to texts, to others, and to the world.

A comprehensive guide to choosing and using the best children's books to address sensitive but significant topics in the classroom.

Despite limitations and challenges, teaching about difficult histories is an essential aspect of social studies courses and units across grade levels. This practical resource highlights stories of K–12 practitioners who have critically examined and reflected on their experiences with planning and teaching histories identified as difficult. Featuring the voices of teacher educators, classroom teachers, and museum educators, these stories provide readers with rare examples of how to plan for, teach, and reflect on difficult histories. The book is divided into four main sections: Centering Difficult History Content, Centering Teacher and Student Identities, Centering Local and Contemporary Contexts, and Centering Teacher Decision-making. Key topics include teaching about genocide, slavery, immigration, war, racial violence, and terrorism. This dynamic book highlights the practitioner’s perspective to reveal how teachers can and do think critically about their motivations and the methods they use to engage students in rigorous, complex, and appropriate studies of the past. Book Features: Expanded notions of what difficult histories can be and how they can be approached pedagogically.Thoughtful pictures of practice of some of the most complex histories to teach. Stories of K–12 teachers and museum educators with the research of leading scholars in social studies education. Examples from a wide range of educational contexts in the United States and other countries. Resources useful to teachers and teacher educators. Contributors include LaGarrett J. King, Cinthia Salinas, Stephanie van Hover, Amanda Vickery, Sohyun An, H. James (Jim) Garrett, Christopher C. Martell, and Jennifer Hauver.

How can you really make a difference for your students? Teaching Tough Kids delivers a refreshing collection of realistic ideas to sustain the organisational and behavioural transformations of all students, particularly those who 'do it tough'; who learn and react differently. They are complex kids who find life tougher than most. Managing their emotion and behaviour presents educators with a spectacular challenge in schools today, and numbers are on the rise. Filled with inspirational case studies, this book focuses on building improved relationships, structures and behaviours, rather than seeing the student as 'the problem' that must be fixed. Highlighting the value of promoting positive connections with students of all ages, the author presents ways to incorporate inclusive ideas into everyday practice and construct pathways for students to become engaged in their learning and achieve success. This stimulating book shows teachers how to: build student connectedness to learning; set achievable goals for each individual child; support emotional stability; strengthen organisation patterns; address behavioural issues; improve homework planning; create friendships and deal with bullying. Teaching Tough Kids takes a particularly close focus on students identified with Learning Disability, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Asperger Syndrome. Another group of students with executive functioning difficulties are emerging in schools. These are the kids who have endured neglect or too much stress and uncertainty in their lives and as a result display classic symptoms of hyperactivity, hyper vigilance and impulsivity. Teaching Tough Kids will be of immense interest to teachers, student teachers, staff in Pupil Referral Units, SENCos and all those involved with Behaviour Support work.

Will there be sex in heaven? Are miraculous gifts for today? Does God ever change His mind? Such difficult questions often intrigue us, readily confuse us, and sometimes disturb us. Drawing on nearly 40 years of teaching and ministry experience, pastor-scholar Sam Storms answers 25 challenging questions Christians are often too afraid to ask, addressing thorny issues ranging from the eternal destiny of infants to the roles of demons and angels. The robust, thoughtful answers provided in this book offer a helpful alternative to relying on simplistic explanations, and will encourage you in the search for truth and clarity on such tough topics.

Teaching controversial issues in the classroom is now more urgent and fraught than ever as we face up to rising authoritarianism, racial and economic injustice, and looming environmental disaster. Despite evidence that teaching controversy is critical, educators often avoid it. How then can we prepare and support teachers to undertake this essential but difficult work? Hard Questions: Learning to Teach Controversial Issues, based on a cross-national qualitative study, examines teacher educators’ efforts to prepare preservice teachers for teaching controversial issues that matter for democracy, justice, and human rights. It presents four detailed cases of teacher preparation in three politically divided societies: Northern Ireland, England, and the United States. The book traces graduate students’ learning from university coursework into the classrooms where they work to put what they have learned into practice. It explores their application of pedagogical tools and the factors that facilitated or hindered their efforts to teach controversy. The book’s cross-national perspective is compelling to a broad and diverse audience, raising critical questions about teaching controversial issues and providing educators, researchers, and policymakers tools to help them fulfill this essential democratic mission of education.