Educators Books

Early Childhood Specialists wrote this book specifically for early childhood teachers who are teaching children in the three to eight year old age bracket. I found this book straightforward, user friendly and self-explanatory. I looked at all of the photos, illustrations, diagrams and discovered that they were very useful adult learning tools. I applied some of the computer strategies and now feel more confortable and confident in using classroom computers as a teaching tool.
From the teachings, I explored every essential piece of the classroom computer. It encouraged and guided me on how to integrate computers as a learning center in the regular learning environment and encouraged children's learning in a technological age. The book provided me with curricular approaches that offered a framework for classroom instruction and linked children's computer use with curriculum and assessment and also assisted me with the adoption of effective practices. This is a must have for early childhood classroom teacherw whe want to integrate their classrooms with appropriate computer usage.

I highly recommend this book (actually a booklet to work through with your child, a poster and an explanatory guide). I am the mother of a child with a learning disability. My son's 5th grade teacher (who has extensive experience in dealing with learning disabilities) recommended this tool to me when some attention issue cropped up in the classroom. This is a great tool to use with children who have difficulty attending to a task. My son is not ADD, but he does have some attention issues. Working through the booklet with him helped immensely--both in terms of demystifying what was going on and in giving us a common language to communicate about what the issues were. We think things like "he just doesn't pay attention", but Levine makes it clear that there are many components to attention and that you can be very good at some and poor at others.

It is great to see that the Journey to Freedom series of the African American Library continues to publish new volumes. This spring the series published the new volumes "The Amistad Mutiny: Fighting for Freedom," "Arthur Ashe: Athlete and Activist," "The Blues: Birth of an American Sound," "Brown vs. Board of Education: The Battle for Equal Education," "Miles Davis: Jazz Master," and this one on "Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Secretary of State" (you can tell the most recent volumes simply because they have subtitles). Whereas the volume on Colin Powell was published before he became the first African American Secretary of State (it ends with him deciding not to run for president in 1996), this volume by Kevin Cunningham is able to tell the entire story of how Rice became the second African American (and second woman after Madeleine Albright) to hold the senior position in the Cabinet.

The story begins with Rice being born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1954, the daughter of teachers (her mother played the piano and organ and Rice's first name is an Italian musical term to play "with sweetness"). As is always the case in the books in this series, this allows photographs (the "Colored Entrance" to a segregated theater) and examples of what life was like growing up in the Jim Crow south (Rice was a friend of one of the four girls killed by the bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963). Of course, this entire series underscores what things have been like in the past (often the recent past) to set up the accomplishments of these noted African-Americans.

Although she was bored with studying government, Rice ended up being interested in the Soviet Union and in a career in international relations. The move from civil rights to the Cold War is presented as being a conflict on a larger stage. Rice's expertise on the Soviet Union not only gets her a teaching position at Stanford University, but also gets her noticed by Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor for President George H. W. Bush (since most young people only associate Rice with George W. Bush, the current president, this shows she has been around for a while). Cunningham then traces the steps by which Rice ended up becoming part of the current Bush White House, first as NSA and now as Sec. State.

The one thing I did not pick up from this book was an idea of Rice's political theory of international relations. But then you will not find out who was the member of the Denver Broncos that Rice was engaged to, so get used to the disappointment. Then again, most of us have to go back to Henry Kissinger to name a U.S. Secretary of State where we have an idea of how they say the world and what they were trying to accomplish. Cunningham does point out that Rice pushed for the reunification of Germany, so there is at least one significant example where she advocated a position and was proven right.

In addition to laying out the steps by which Rice went from Birmingham to the State Department, Cunningham emphasizes how being a black woman in a white man's world (especially when it comes to studying the Soviet Union), got Rice noticed, but that it was her abilities that kept her moving up the ladder. One nice thing about being the first African-American woman to be Secretary of State is that the next African-American or the next woman will be the third of each and therefore hardly worth noting. You can see that now with the pending Bush decision on a Supreme Court appointment where the potential nomination of the first Hispanic is seen as more newsworthy than what would be the third woman. Still, young readers will get a sense of how being the "first" can open the doors for a whole lot of others to follow.

More books like this one should be available to educators to teach this important skill of peacefully resolving conflict. Another book I wouldn't be without is Bully-Proofing Children: A Practical, Hands-On Guide to Stop Bullying. This book goes beyond bullying with great lessons and activities geared at creating peaceful classrooms where children are taught to get along,make friends, assert themselves peacefully, deal with anger and resolve conflicts.

Expertly translated into English and adapted for an American readership by Thomas L. Kennedy, Confucian Feminist: Memoirs Of Zeng Baosun (1893-1978) is the remarkable autobiographical testimony and memoir of the late Zeng Baosun, a thoughtful and expressive woman who recounts her education abroad, to her survival through two world wars, to her life and exile in Taiwan, and even entails cogent observations on President Nixon's resignation from office. An insightful look at nations and history itself from a personal perspective, Confucian Feminist is a very highly recommended addition to Aisan Studies and Women's Studies reference collections and reading lists.

Extremely practical and very readable. A nice expansion of the first edition. Applicable to most anyone facing (music) copyright questions.

In Copyright Essentials For Librarians And Educators, attorney and librarian Kenneth Crews provides an up-to-date compendium of information on the fundamentals of current copyright law as it applies to the school or public library. Crews addresses such critical issues as what makes a work copyright-protects (or not); how long copyrights last; the rights of copyright owners; how to determine what qualifies as "fair use"; and what the "need-to-knows" are as regarding copyright and the Internet. Copyright Essentials For Librarians And Educators is a complete-under-one-cover guide to all pertinent aspects of copyright for classroom and library resource materials, whether the information under question is in a print or electronic format.

This is a very well written book by Dr. Wiley and Dr. Montgomery. They are not only good professors, but really care about how their students perform after they are out of college. This book is very clearly written to help anyone prepare for their future as a teacher. It will be much easier for students to display their achievements and abilities with these new e-portfolios created using powerpoint. What a great idea!!!

Whew! Talk about knocking one out of the park!!! In these chapters we find some of the most articulate and evidence-based conversations around the dynamic issue of professional development in the early childhood field. These chapters provide the foundation for fiscally responsible spending and informed decision making for entities that support early childhood workforce initiatives. Way to go Martha and Ivelisse. You will want to buy several copies to share with your colleagues as they will hear you talking a lot about what you've learned and read in this text

I loved this book. Its a tear jerker about what one man went through to help find himself and his sexual identity while having a wife and kids in tow. Wonderful book