Educators Books

In "Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders", experts in social education and psychology offer a user-friendly resource summarizing current research and reviewing how to teach students with ASD. Covering specific characteristics of ASD individuals, using a team approach to involve parents, technology options, and more, "Teaching Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders" is an excellent guide for any special education collection.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is a comprehensive book about creating a safe and productive classroom in an otherwise unpredictable world. Edited after the 9/11 attacks, the book opens with a discussion about violence in the media and at home and how young children are affected. From there, she addresses difficult issues that arise in the classroom, such as gunplay, and relates these issues to children's exposure to violence and media. Levin introduces guidelines to promote a healthy mini-society within the classroom which she calls the "Peaceable Classroom." These guidelines are not rigid, but ever evolving to meet the needs of children. She highlights the need for open dialogue between the children and teachers, something that can only be achieved if the children feel safe enough to speak. She does not advocate providing the children with adult-sized solutions to issues that arise in the classroom. Instead, she promotes an open forum between the children and teachers to arrive at the best solution to a problem. In addition, she discusses accepting children's thinking about tough issues while challenging their concepts about violence, sexism, and racism during open dialogue and through Piaget-like activities.

I believe that anyone would benefit from reading this book, but I particularly recommend it to anyone who has trouble dealing with violent pretend play or gunplay in the classroom. Levin demonstrates a realistic approach to dealing with such problems without banning them outright. She has clear examples of conversations and activities meant to encourage a safe community that are easy to follow and adaptable to a variety of situations. She does a wonderful job of shedding light on an issue that is more complex than meets the eye. This would also be a good place to start in creating a classroom community from scratch or when working in a school system where the children may have been exposed to violence in the home or surrounding community.

Trent Jones' story of his years as a teacher in the tiny one-room school in Terlingua, Texas is inspiring. It tells of Jones' dedication to his students and his efforts to obtain state accreditation for the tiny school in isolated far West Texas.

I have looked at this book several times, and it is pretty detailed and helpful. I haven't finished studying for the test yet for lack of time. I think it is going to help me quite a bit, because it is also repetitive, which in this cas is good.

I can think of two ways to introduce a theorist - by simplifying core ideas, well exemplified; or by short, abstract, expository summaries of thought. This book does the latter. Short on examples, but relatively clear on key theoretical constructs, with consistent links to further reading.

As a late-career professor with a cognitive-psych and instructional-design background, these literary/critical theorists are new territory for me - and that's the fun. Seems like this best is best suited for academics already fairly fluent in abstractions. Not sure how a master's or beginning doctoral student would respond - haven't tried it yet.

Dr. Ellenmorris Tiegerman's insightful comments quoted above and in the preface to this text are seminal. Over at least the past 40 years, education and the law have become increasingly enmeshed. And yet, with the ever expanding emphasis on academic accountability, educators often find little time and inclination to pay sufficient attention to this "nexus, which is both conceptual and pragmatic in nature." It is more obvious to those of us who went to school before the late 60's, especially if we ended up working in the schools, how much case law by itself has changed the way business is done and defined for our schools such standards as "reasonableness," "good faith" and "deliberate indifference." The law has "intruded" so much upon us that we have become preoccupied in a generally uninformed way with it, even to the point of being frightened of it at times. Sarah Redfield is a pioneer in helping to make education law accessible to practitioners both of education and of law. I have long been a student of education law. I have taught it to administrators in training, and I use my understanding of it daily in my career as a public school administrator in a large high school. In my course, this book has become required reading. It fills an important place. As the author contends in her preface,"This book offers a first step." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once wrote that the law is not "a brooding omnipresence in the sky." Especially if you are an educator seeking to understand what the law truly has to say to our profession, this book is for you. It will not only get you started with a basic understanding; it will give you the means to remain a lifetime learner. You will find it both a readable text and a ready reference.

"This Happened in America is an immensely engaging, thoroughly researched, and well-written intellectual biography of one of America's leading progressive educators. Evans' narrative of Rugg's committed struggle to
reconstruct the social studies curriculum into an interdisciplinary focus on major controversial issues contributes not only to the study of American education but captures the great ideological conflicts between conservatives and progressives in American democracy.

Evans' book is a highly instructive examination of how schools contribute to forming future citizens' perspectives of their social and political reality. It recounts how Rugg's efforts to redefine the social studies curriculum pitted him in a heightened and dramatic conflict in the late 1930s and early 1940s against cultural and political conservatives. This lively and comprehensive biography of Rugg provides a story of a deep, turbulent, and inspiring account that informs us today about the profound connections between the school and society. Rugg's concept of the artist-teacher remains as an ideal that contemporary educators need to reexamine."

~Gerald L. Gutek, Professor Emeritus of Education
Loyola University, Chicago


"Ron Evans brings one of the giants of American education fully to life in this thoroughly researched and vividly rendered biography. Harold Rugg was a driving force in the progressive schools movement and the leading figure in the development of social studies as an area to challenge the deadening standardization that characterized the schools of his day. Rugg knew that education could never be neutral, and he fought for a vision of schools as a central force in the reconstruction of society along lines of freedom, participatory democracy, creativity, and justice. Evans captures Rugg in all his three-dimensional and contradictory splendor."

~William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education,
University of Illinois at Chicago.
Author of: Teaching Toward Freedom


"Ron Evans shows why Harold Rugg's curriculum work resides at the center of some of the most roiling educational debates of the 20th century. At the same time, Evans' intensive research and fine-grained analysis illuminates why Rugg's ideas remain pertinent
today."

~David T. Hansen, Professor and Director,
Program in Philosophy and Education,
Teachers College, Columbia University


Ronald W. Evans is a nationally recognized scholar at San Diego State University. His previous books include The Social Studies Wars (Teachers College Press, 2004) and the Handbook on Teaching Social Issues (NCSS, 1996).

Dr. Clark was a family friend who did a great deal for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The book beautifully describles a life well spent as both a very kind man and a generous public servant.

This is a must-have for any Catholic religious educator. The author brilliantly takes you through the entire year of both adult and children's religious classes, offering ideas to improve any parish's Sunday school program. Because it is broken down by season, you get an easy-to-follow breakdown of ideas to make Lent, Advent and many other holy events more special to those wanting to learn. This should be a mandatory read for every Catholic religious educator and pastor. It's that good.

For those who imagine librarians are like what could have happened to the Donna Reed character if _A Wonderful Life_ hadn't, this volume demonstrates the engagement and vitality of library workers. They collect materials and then present them so that the public can make sense of information and knowledgeably take action. Beyond serving as a search engine, librarians find and deliver to their clienteles an array of useful, entertaining, and educational resources. Ours is a complex world, and we can appreciate assistance the library gives in understanding it.
_A True Politician_ chronicles the life of a librarian who held true to her job as a member of her community. It also offers a hint of romance. I'm glad that I read this inspiring book.