"There are steps teachers and administrators can take—tweaks, if you will—that make a classroom or school a place that’s safe for children, one where every student feels noticed and known, one that challenges kids and entices them with the intrinsic rewards of real work done well."
—Nancie Atwell
Since 1990, Nancie Atwell and the faculty of the K–8 Center for Teaching and Learning have charged themselves with a mission. “Our job is to innovate for the good of children,” Nancie writes, “and then to pass along to other teachers the lessons we learn about instruction that makes a difference.” Systems to Transform Your Classroom and School makes CTL’s powerful innovations accessible to every teacher and administrator.
Nancie and her colleagues have created a culture of engagement and excellence by combining smart practices and policies with rich, community-building traditions and rituals. Systems to Transform Your Classroom and School introduces essential practices such as CTL’s:
- daily morning meetings
- student-generated bill of rights
- school-wide “You can’t say you can’t play” rule
- outreach to parents
- spiraling K–8 curriculum in science and history
- student—and teacher—self-assessment and goal-setting
- student-led evaluation conferences
- systems for school and classroom management
- workshop approaches to teaching math, reading, and writing—including warmups, mini-lessons, conferences, and rigorous yet kid-friendly expectations based on the research and experience of a faculty of master teachers.
Nancie invites you to:
- reflect on your own practice and goals
- view CTL’s systems at work on the accompanying DVD
- read about her school’s solutions to common problems of teaching
- access resources—forms, guidelines, and protocols—developed by the CTL faculty.
“If we want students to feel a sense of belonging to something that’s bigger than they are,” Nancie observes, “it’s essential that their teachers feel that way, too.” Join your own colleagues, along with long-distance colleagues at the Center for Teaching and Learning, to discover how Systems to Transform Your Classroom and School can help turn your teaching ideals into a practical, successful reality.
Read a sample chapter, and watch a sample video clip.
