Educators Books

Jan Walker expertly articulates her experiences providing vital education in two of Washington State's prisons, but the worth of her writing goes much deeper. She is a candid guide through the current cultural minefield of crime and corrections. Our society is vocally tough on crime, locking up more people for longer sentences than ever. But without an opportunity for education, character development, spiritual maturing, employable skills and family healing, prisons are underfunded warehouses reinforcing the very values nobody wants released to their neighborhoods. Walker's work at McNeil Island Correctional Center left footprints on men's hearts and their children's lives. My husband and I know this, although we have never met her and were unfamiliar with the entire scope of her work until reading this book. Nonetheless we currently strive to continue what she started at McNeil. Are we, and Walker, "soft on crime and criminals'? No. Like her, and countless dedicated educators across the nation, we believe that families, and especially children, do time with each convicted felon. Anything we can do to ignite understanding, change destructive family patterns and promote generational healing is of benefit to our society as a whole. Jan Walker's memoir is authentic and insightful. I wish every legislator in our country was required to read it... and take a test.

This is a must read for all educators. This book tells the stories of many children that may be sitting in classrooms all over the world. Listen to their stories and pay attention to the children in your life. I wish someone would have asked me what was wrong when I was growing up.

Would that we all experienced a wise and witty philosopher-professor such as this gifted writer! A. Gray Thompson's life-wanderings took him from elementary to university classrooms, from a principal's office to a jewelry-making shed, from California to Wisconsin to Mexico to Central America to ... with lots of Detours and experiences along the way. He developed a "philosophy for children" program that's described in such a way that every teacher (and parent) can try it out. He also developed a worn-down coffee farm into a teaching tool for his indigenous Maya neighbors, while creating a botanic garden-wonder which I'm eager to visit some day.

Rich anecdotes of a curious observer and experimenter fill each chapter. All that's missing is a chance to sit with the author and hear him tell these experiences while sipping some of his coffee - but heck, make your own coffee, settle down in your own home, and let this brilliant fellow share his wisdom with a heavy dose of humor. These are marvelous ramblings indeed!

This book provides an abundance of sound strategies for helping studnets with special needs.

I got this book at a seminar on differentiating instruction and am glad that I did. It has ideas and activities for grades 4-12. I was able to read it quickly, due to its quick-access format. Included are 87 pages of great ideas on grouping, adapting textbooks, prereading, during reading modifications, and after-reading activities. Following this section are 38 pages of reproducibles. I plan to use strategies from this book immediately in my middle school classes. This is a great resource if you want to "teach the student, not the textbook."

Above all, Herbert Kohn, teacher extraordinary, says we must listen to children so we can discover how to teach them. Then, he lays a heavy one on us: ALL children can learn. And he takes us with him so we can watch him do it. In schoolrooms, homes, churches, public areas, from East coast to West coast and back again -- wherever the learners are. He lets us see why top-down public education policy is not the best way. We haven't asked the teachers who know -- and can figure out if they are allowed to do so -- how to do this thing called teaching. And never does he separate teaching and learning. They work together. Readers get to see some of the special projects Kohl has worked on and hear some of the students who have learned with him. He has done some amazing work but tells about it in such a way that it seems possible to the rest of us, whether teachers, learners, parents, or taxpayers.

This is an important book on an important forgotten educator. Don't let Wesley Null's title throw you off. Bagley was a powerful, insightful critic of "Progressive" education. Null is an educational historian, and what he means by "Progressive" is what historians mean by that term. He insightfully places Bagley's life within the context in which he lived. Bagley has a great deal to offer us today as far as a philosophy of education is concerned. He is an "Essentialist," which means, according to Null, that Bagley believed that all kids should receive a high quality academic curriculum. Bagley goes beyond grand theorizing, however. He also was a teacher educator who believed that his vision for high-quality curriculum should be realized through high-quality teacher training. He believed in teacher training that combined arts & science faculty members with education school faculty. Bagley is right on his views of teacher training. I think everybody who wants good teachers for their kids should read this book. The people who need to read it the most are the education professors. Bagley has a good vision for them.

As a reading tutor, I have struggled with how I should teach children with reading difficulties. Where theoretical issues are concerned, I found myself vacillating between whole language and phonics, being easily swayed by the eloquent proponents of either approach. In search of an end to my perpetual confusion, I grabbed hold of this eminent copy. The first few essays changed my outlook forever; I will never look at beginning literacy the same way again. It's somewhat surreal when you have an article by Goodman and another by Stanovich back to back, both addressing the same issue from different vantage points. Shannon's essay brought a new perspective to my knowledge on literacy. Certainly a mind-opener for me.

Annan provides memorable portraits of many Oxbridge dons, even as he shows how different from our own were the eras in which these men (and, far too belatedly, women) worked. For example, consider the following:

** The two opiates to be avoided at all costs were love of success and a preoccupation with money. Lowes Dickinson's most famous pupil was E. M. Forster, who in his novels tooks Dickinson's ideas a stage further; and he summarised the King's [College] ethos by saying that it was a place that "taught the perky boy that he was not everything and the limp boy that he might be something." **

Alas, this is not _our_ era . . .

The book is also packed with amusing quotes from the dons themselves, such as the following message from one don to another:

** On our return last night I found as I thought that a spider had crawled out of the inkstand over a piece of paper; but it turns out to be a hieroglyphic from which I so far interpreted as to perceive it was an invitation to meet some professor whose name as you wrote it looked somewhat indecent. I shall be happy to wait on you and take the opportunity of learning the Eyptian mode of writing. **

Annan's book is ultimately an elegy because Margaret Thatcher, among others, did so much to ruin the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

I just bought this wonderful book when I went back to Hampton University for Homecoming 2003. I was glad to see such an undertaking written on Dr. Harvey. I found it very interesting and I am now in trouble with my wife because I kept my night-stand light on all night reading the book from cover to cover. I have only one criticism so I will dispense with that first: Dr. Benjamin is very repetitious of certain facts and accounts including them in one chapter to illustrate one aspect of Harvey's leadership and then in another to illustrate a similar leadership trait, while this is the only weakness of the book it is a common thread throughout, chapter after chapter,and therefore does lend itself to no small amount of irritation. Other than that, it is an absolutely fabulous book about a man who has been a true inspiration to more than a generation of Hamptonians. As an approach to the work, it should be noted for the true students of the genre that the book neither is nor pretends to be a work of autobiography, instead it is a chronicle of how one man's value based leadership transformed an institution of higher learning. In the pages of this book one finds a man steady at the ship in steering Hampton toward new horizons while keeping her true to her most noblest traditions and aspirations. One finds a man of vision unafraid to do what is right for that grand institution while in the process demonstrating and exemplifying dignity and decency. As an alum of Hampton University who was inspired by Harvey's leadership as a student, the work came as a refresher and a capsulization of all that I learned while quietly observing this man from a distance. Thank You, Dr. Benjamin for capturing one of Hampton's finest moments...Dr Harvey, Hampton University is your destiny... what a blessing to be so clear...and she still needs you!!!

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