This empathic book suggests simple ways of guiding honest and responsive classroom discussion, with insights into dealing with a number of real-world challenges.
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.
In the Great Recession of 2007-2010, Americans watched their retirement savings erode and the value of their homes decline while the unemployment rate increased and GDP sank. New demands emerged for unprecedented government intervention into the economy. While these changes have a dramatic impact on society at large, they also have serious implications for the content and teaching of economics. Teaching Economics in a Time of Unprecedented Change is a one-stop collection that helps pre- and in-service social studies teachers to foster an understanding of classic content as well as recent economic developments. Part I offers clear and teachable overviews of the nature of today’s complex economic crisis and the corollary changes in teaching economics that flow from revising and updating long-held economic assumptions. Part II provides both detailed best practices for teaching economics in the social studies classroom and frameworks for teaching economics within different contexts including personal finance, entrepreneurship, and history. Part III concludes with effective strategies for teaching at the elementary and secondary school levels based on current research on economic education. From advice on what every economics teacher should know, to tips for best education practices, to investigations into what research tells us about teaching economics, this collection provides a wealth of contextual background and teaching ideas for today’s economics and social studies educators. Additional information and resources can be found at the authors’ website neweconteaching.com.
"Upending deficit narrative of learning loss, combating broken approaches to racial equity, and wading deep into the contested waters of democratic principles of learning within today’s schools, Dr. Skerrett and Dr. Smagorinsky offer an accessible guidebook for making our classrooms sites of justice and joy. Perhaps most importantly, theirs is a book that reveals classroom practices as they really are--the voices of teachers are situated as co-authors in this important journey. I cannot think of a more timely or relevant book for English educators than Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times." — Antero Garcia, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University Relevant instruction to move education forward instead of "back to normal" Educators often bemoan the so-called learning gap that followed the upheaval to schooling in 2020, but the real learning gap will occur if the watershed events and social shifts of the early 2020s are not integrated into school instruction and learning. For today’s learning to be relevant to today’s students, it must reflect their lives and the true social worlds they inhabit. But how? Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times empowers educators to engage students in critical thinking, literacy activities, and inquiry to investigate the personal and social issues of pressing importance to today’s middle and high school students. Six units of study, each co-authored by a teacher who road-tested the activities in their own classroom, guide teachers through the process of teaching literacy around the topics of identity, social inequity, global justice, empathy, racism and racial literacy, and conflicting ideas of patriotism. This urgent, timely guide to creating a relevant classroom includes: Instructional methods, content knowledge, and learning activities for each unit that engage students in critical inquiry and social action. Insights and guidance from teachers who put the full unit plans in action with students. Reflection questions to help teachers envision the work in their own classrooms. Templates, rubrics, examples of student work, and other tools that help teachers to plan and implement activities that grow students’ capacity to understand and act in society. Prime your students with the critical thinking, investigative, and communicative skills they need to connect themselves to broader social movements and create a new generation of educated changemakers.
Transform challenging classroom experiences into opportunities for lasting student-teacher relationships, professional growth, and student engagement Chronic stress, anxiety, and trauma have startling effects on teachers and students. The pandemic and distance learning have exacerbated behavior issues and emotional dysregulation, making it difficult for students to engage, learn, and maintain healthy self-esteem. In Teaching, Learning, and Trauma, the authors guide you through the process of creating a learning environment that combats the negative effects of chronic stress and trauma. They show you how to establish rituals and routines, develop personalization, and implement effective student engagement practices that create a relationship-based culture and effectively improve student achievement. This book includes: Self-assessment tools to help teachers make informed decisions Examples of self-care plans and schoolwide policies for maintaining healthy boundaries in and out of school Real-world vignettes and samples of teacher work Planning documents and reflection questions to guide educators in identifying strengths and growth areas Using a synergistic approach, this book unites compelling research data, theories, stories, and best practices from trauma-informed schools, relationship-based psychology, and effective instructional design to dissolve obstacles caused by chronic stress and trauma.
A call to action against troubled public education systems cites practices that victimize students and teachers, assessing current methods that enforce "sink-or-swim" mentalities, force teachers to work against their consciences, and compromise creativity and intellectual development, in a meditative analysis that addresses specific challenges within such areas as educational budgets, state standards, and injudicious politics. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD--BIOGRAPHY Elie Wiesel was a towering presence on the world stage--a Nobel laureate, activist, adviser to world leaders, and the author of more than forty books, including the Oprah's Book Club selection Night. But when asked, Wiesel always said, "I am a teacher first." In fact, he taught at Boston University for nearly four decades, and with this book, Ariel Burger--devoted prot g , apprentice, and friend--takes us into the sacred space of Wiesel's classroom. There, Wiesel challenged his students to explore moral complexity and to resist the dangerous lure of absolutes. In bringing together never-before-recounted moments between Wiesel and his students, Witness serves as a moral education in and of itself--a primer on educating against indifference, on the urgency of memory and individual responsibility, and on the role of literature, music, and art in making the world a more compassionate place. Burger first met Wiesel at age fifteen; he became his student in his twenties, and his teaching assistant in his thirties. In this profoundly thought-provoking and inspiring book, Burger gives us a front-row seat to Wiesel's remarkable exchanges in and out of the classroom, and chronicles the intimate conversations between these two men over the decades as Burger sought counsel on matters of intellect, spirituality, and faith, while navigating his own personal journey from boyhood to manhood, from student and assistant, to rabbi and, in time, teacher. "Listening to a witness makes you a witness," said Wiesel. Ariel Burger's book is an invitation to every reader to become Wiesel's student, and witness.
Imperfect Heroes is intended to help teachers flourish during challenging times. The book is written for all educators, but especially those who seek renewal in their ability to help students learn and grow. Included are the inspiring and motivational stories of twelve “Teaching Heroes.” Successful leaders, writers, and artists face challenges strikingly similar to obstacles faced by teachers. Iconic individuals often use life hardships as a springboard to achieve higher levels of effectiveness. Teachers can do this, too. Personal, career, and relational roadblocks are universal, and much can be learned from how heroes have turned trials into successes. The main idea of this book is that learning about the lives of people different from ourselves can provide large benefits. The application of ideas from new and divergent sources to our teaching practices can result in transformative growth in our ability to help others learn. Teachers can use the hero stories intertwined with classroom examples to gain confidence, motivate students, and renew their commitment to making a positive contribution to the world.
The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future.
Thinking about teaching in educational terms has become increasingly difficult because of the conceptions of higher education that predominate in both policy and public debate. Framing the benefits of higher education simply as an economic good poses particular difficulties for making educational sense of teaching. Moreover, the assumptions about social mobility, usefulness, and the economic advantages of higher education, upon which these conceptions are based, can no longer be taken for granted. The chapters in this book all wrestle with understandings of education and teaching experiences in changing global, national, and institutional contexts. They explore questions of difference and privilege, the social transformation of teaching through transforming teachers, contestations of global citizenship and interculturality, learning and sensibilities of self-in-the-world, the relationship between programme content and student decision-making, divergent conceptions of learning in international education, and subject-centred approaches to embodied teaching. The book considers the value of disciplinary tools of analysis in addressing contextual challenges in developing societies, connections between pedagogies, autonomy and intercultural classrooms, and ways of countering the marketization of higher education through online teaching communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education.