As humans who teach, there is so much that we want for our students and for ourselves. We want to make our classrooms welcoming and equitable places for students, and we want to lead lives full of peace, love, and joy. However, the ways in which we have been socialized can hold us back. In Humans Who Teach: A Guide for Centering Love, Justice, and Liberation in Schools, Shamari Reid lays out a path for working toward liberation for our students and for ourselves by honoring our own humanity and choosing love over fear.
Tom Newkirk, lifetime educator and bestselling author of Minds Made for Stories, discusses eight powerful literacy practices-- and the democratic values that connect them. Newkirk argues that "the house of literacy has a thousand doors, and our job is to help students find one that will let them in." Yet for many students reading and writing is made unnecessarily difficult and uninviting. We need to tell a better story. Literacy's Democratic Roots celebrates eight door-opening ideas that can help us make room for all students.
In Teaching Writing, Lucy Calkins shares the depth and breadth of her knowledge, from the initial research that launched some of the biggest ideas still foundational to the teaching of writing today, to her newest insights gleaned from decades of work and study in thousands of classrooms across the globe.
While challenging the teacher as hero trope, We Got This shows how authentically listening to kids is the closest thing to a superpower that we have. Cornelius Minor identifies tools, attributes, and strategies that can augment our listening, allowing us to make powerful moves toward equity by broadening access to learning for all children.
What motivates us to learn? We all want to promote student engagement, but we often struggle with getting our students excited about and responsible for their own learning. In Engaging Children, Ellin Oliver Keene explores the question: What can we do to encourage motivation for students or, better yet, their engagement?
