This book shares insights drawn from the diverse voices of public school teachers, community outreach education workers, professors, writers, poets, artists, and musicians on suffering in school and the classroom. Teachers speak about their own encounters with and perceptions from suffering using critical-analytic textual works, as well as first-hand personally reflective accounts. By sharing their stories and reflections, the editors and contributors shed light upon the dark areas that often are not addressed in Teacher Training Programs, and that generally remain unaddressed and unacknowledged even as teachers become well-established as professionals in the field of education.
We live in a wired world where 24/7 digital connectivity is increasingly the norm. Christian megachurch communities often embrace this reality wholeheartedly while more traditional churches often seem hesitant and overwhelmed by the need for an interactive website, a Facebook page and a twitter feed. This book accepts digital connectivity as our reality, but presents a vision of how faith communities can utilize technology to better be the body of Christ to those who are hurting while also helping followers of Christ think critically about the limits of our digital attachments. This book begins with a conversion story of a non-cell phone owning, non-Facebook using religion professor judgmental of the ability of digital tools to enhance relationships. A stage IV cancer diagnosis later, in the midst of being held up by virtual communities of support, a conversion occurs: this religion professor benefits in embodied ways from virtual sources and wants to convert others to the reality that the body of Christ can and does exist virtually and makes embodied difference in the lives of those who are hurting. The book neither uncritically embraces nor rejects the constant digital connectivity present in our lives. Rather it calls on the church to a) recognize ways in which digital social networks already enact the virtual body of Christ; b) tap into and expand how Christ is being experienced virtually; c) embrace thoughtfully the material effects of our new augmented reality, and c) influence utilization of technology that minimizes distraction and maximizes attentiveness toward God and the world God loves.
This is a book about everything you were never taught at school. It's about how to understand your emotions, find and sustain love, succeed in your career, fail well and overcome shame and guilt. It's also about letting go of the myth of a perfect life in order to achieve genuine emotional maturity. Written in a hugely accessible, warm and humane style, The School of Life is the ultimate guide to the emotionally fulfilled lives we all long for - and deserve. This book brings together ten years of essential and transformative research on emotional intelligence, with practical topics including: - how to understand yourself - how to master the dilemmas of relationships - how to become more effective at work - how to endure failure - how to grow more serene and resilient.
Coping with anger and pain is more challenging than ever in these times—and more necessary. Two acclaimed Buddhist teachers offer strategies and wisdom in a book that’s been called “possibly the most inspiring and liberating meditation on love ever written.” When people and circumstances upset us, how do we deal with them? Often, we feel victimized. We become hurt, angry, and defensive. We end up seeing others as enemies, and when things don’t go our way, we become enemies to ourselves. But what if we could move past this pain, anger, and defensiveness? Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, this book introduces us to the four kinds of enemies we encounter in life: the outer enemy, people, institutions, and situations that mean to harm us; the inner enemy, anger, hatred, fear, and other destructive emotions; the secret enemy, self-obsession that isolates us from others; and the super-secret enemy, deep-seated self-loathing that prevents us from finding inner freedom and true happiness. In this practical guide, we learn not only how to identify our enemies, but more important, how to transform our relationship to them. Love Your Enemies teaches us how to . . . · break free from the mode of “us” versus “them” thinking · develop compassion, patience, and love · accept what is beyond our control · embrace lovingkindness, right speech, and other core concepts First published in 2013, Love Your Enemies is, more than ever, required reading for navigating our world. Throughout, authors Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman draw from ancient spiritual wisdom and modern psychology to help you find peace within yourself and with the world. * Includes new prefaces from both authors *
A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days “A one-of-a-kind book . . . to read for yourself or give to a struggling friend or loved one without the fear that depression and suicidal thoughts will be minimized, medicalized or over-spiritualized.”—Kay Warren, cofounder of Saddleback Church What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you. You just want a way out. But there’s hope. In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better. Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.
In this third instalment of The History Teacher trilogy, John Stevens, the history teacher, takes a trip to Estonia where he is drawn into an extraordinary adventure of hope and intrigue! Intent on changing the course of human history, an international group of do-gooders gathers in this tiny Eastern European country to map out a strategy for change! First, though, they must overcome the power structures and attitudes meant to maintain the global status quo. All too often, people ask what we as individuals can do to contribute to meaningful change, feeling too uninformed and powerless to take direct action! The History Teacher, Adventure in Estonia provides simple guidance on how spiritual consciousness and divine love can overcome this dilemma! It transends country, cultural, racial, religious and gender borders to remind us that we are all in this together, sharing a common source and purpose. The story also examines one of the great challenges of human evolution, the steadfast and sometimes violent resistance to change. Similar to the first two editions of this trilogy, the protagonist receives guidance on his journey through dreams, angel visits and synchronistic encounters, amidst a delightfully informative blend of spirituality, history and rock n' roll.
One of the most beloved and trusted mindfulness teachers in America offers a lifeline for difficult times: the RAIN meditation, which awakens our courage and heart Tara Brach is an in-the-trenches teacher whose work counters today's ever-increasing onslaught of news, conflict, demands, and anxieties--stresses that leave us rushing around on auto-pilot and cut off from the presence and creativity that give our lives meaning. In this heartfelt and deeply practical book, she offers an antidote: an easy-to-learn four-step meditation that quickly loosens the grip of difficult emotions and limiting beliefs. Each step in the meditation practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) is brought to life by memorable stories shared by Tara and her students as they deal with feelings of overwhelm, loss, and self-aversion, with painful relationships, and past trauma--and as they discover step-by-step the sources of love, forgiveness, compassion, and deep wisdom alive within all of us. A PENGUIN LIFE TITLE
From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.
A radical educator's paradigm-shifting inquiry into the accepted, normal demands of school, as illuminated by moving portraits of four young "problem children" In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers," challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small. Through delicately crafted portraits of these memorable children—Zora, Lucas, Sean, and Marcus—Troublemakers allows us to see school through the eyes of those who know firsthand what it means to be labeled a problem. From Zora's proud individuality to Marcus's open willfulness, from Sean's struggle with authority to Lucas's tenacious imagination, comes profound insight—for educators and parents alike—into how schools engender, exclude, and then try to erase trouble, right along with the young people accused of making it. And although the harsh disciplining of adolescent behavior has been called out as part of a school-to-prison pipeline, the children we meet in these pages demonstrate how a child's path to excessive punishment and exclusion in fact begins at a much younger age. Shalaby's empathetic, discerning, and elegant prose gives us a deeply textured look at what noncompliance signals about the environments we require students to adapt to in our schools. Both urgent and timely, this paradigm-shifting book challenges our typical expectations for young children and with principled affection reveals how these demands—despite good intentions—work to undermine the pursuit of a free and just society.
In If It Hurts, It Isn't Love, author Chuck Spezzano finds truth in simple insights: What I think I need is what I am called to give. Depression is the fear that something new will leave me. When someone gets angry at me, there is a lesson for me to learn. Jealousy is a birthing place. These principles show how to look afresh at one's most important relationships, in a way that heals pain and brings love and forgiveness. After each principle, the author gives brief exercises that nudge readers further, prompting them to absorb the insights even more deeply.
