Educators Books

I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.

While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.

I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.

I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.

I just read this funny little book. What a hoot. I grew up on MI went to some public school there until my parents had enough and transfered me to the Seattle Hebrew Academy. The whiners in the other reviews on Amazon must be feeling the finger pointed back at themselves! Apparently, the author and a major motion picture company are in talks to write a screen play and make this a feature film. I wonder who they would get to play that snatch of a mother that features prominently in the book. Can't WAIT for the movie and the Oscar nomination that will surely follow.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.

While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.

I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.

I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.

While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.

I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.

I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.

McGowan has successfully said what I have thought again and again. Although I teach in Seattle, not Mercer Island, much of it rings true with my experiences with those crazy parents with an overdeveloped attitude of entitlement. You'll enjoy this quick read!

I agree with the author who wrote the review, "Excellent descriptions of her flights; short on criticism." As an aviator and a student of history I was excited to find a book purported to have done such research on the subject. I was disappointed in the balance and lack of critical analysis. I was very disappointed in the writing skills of the author. There are numerous grammatical errors that are anathema to a writer who has honed her skills. These errors should not have escaped freshman composition courses. In addition there are a plethora of misplaced modifiers. I have had to reread many sentences to determine about whom the author is discussing.

One review mentioned factual errors. Those errors lead one to question the accuracy or the rest of the research. Another reviewer questioned the balance of analysis and balance of the work. I have to agree with that reviewer.

Overall the work is a bit disappointing.

This was a very interesting and informative book.
I feel like it really let me know Amelia.
Only thing I did not like about it was that the begining was
a little slow. A little too much time spent on her ancestors.

I can't believe the author spent 10 years researching this book. I've found two errors in the first chapter. Pottawatomie Creek (pg 12) is not west of Atchison, Ks. It's approximately two hours to the south. Kansas State University (pg 23) is in Manhattan, Ks. It does not have a law school. The law school is located at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. These facts could be easily verified in a short amount of time.

I appreciate the author's honoring Amelia Earhart, someone I, along with millions of people, admire and hold in high esteem. Regardless, I believe it is a biographer's purpose to present as accurate a presentation of someone as the evidence on record provides. The lack thereof of a few important points and this author's omitting relevant facts, that Amelia was NOT considered, among the top women pilots of her day, to be the best woman pilot by any means and most importantly, that Amelia and her celebrity rose specifically due to her business partner and publicity agent George Palmer Putnam. Putnam had been looking for a talented female pilot to ride the Friendship flight that initially made Amelia famous. From thereon, it was publicity stunts arranged by Putnam and his huge publicity machine that enabled Amelia to take off in more than her plane. It was also the onset of the new film industry that enabled Amelia to get so much worldwide attention, through news reels on the earliest movie screens, all arranged by Putnam.

Whatever Amelia's lacking of extensive training as a pilot (as noted by interviews of the top female pilot who knew Amelia) had also been overshadowed by her other talents and tireless contributions in other areas. It was Amelia's drive, talent, skills and her decision to continue with Putnam as her publicity agent, who she eventually married, that made her the best known woman pilot, not her being the best female pilot in the world as this biographer states in clear error.

More seriously, this author fails to comprehend the severity or examine the final flight and how disaster could have been averted, in claiming in the forward that Amelia was a woman of great judgement. Here, I disagree since it is obvious to anyone that the FIRST attempt at a round-the-world flight that ended in a crash, should have been an indicator more flight training was needed to continue, rather than just repairs to the plane. The author fails to address how unnecessary it was for Amelia to surrender her life to being a legend in her last fatal flight, when she began cutting corners in preparation, all due to pressure from her husband George Palmer Putnam.

I do understand the author's wanting to honor the memory of Amelia, to recover from what was a form of failure of the way her final flight ended, I just don't feel the certain omissions of relevant facts is the nature of what a biography should do. Nor do I appreciate this biographer's attempt to disspell any links with Amelia possibly being a feminist lesbian ahead of her time, such as stated in the forward in which the author strongly disputes Amelia rejecting men. Two men were in fact, pressuring Amelia on a continual basis to overcome her natural tendency to reject them as life long partners in marriage. This biographer, wanting to disspell any rumors of the possibility of Amelia being a feminist lesbian, remains in denial of these facts of continual rejection of men, and of their pressuring Amelia up to her final fateful flight.

East to the Dawn is very well-researched, going to many primary sources for information, but not very well-written. There are many cases in which I was aggravated by Butler's choice of words or annoying editorializing.

However, any book about Amelia Earhart which features so many of her own words cannot possibly fail. Her letters, remarks, interviews burst out of the text full of personality, wit, and intelligence. It is no less than shocking how completely contemporary seems, and how inspiring she could be. We can only hope that in the future there are other perfect marriages of a remarkable person and remarkable circumstance, for Amelia Earhart and the early days of aviation were made for each other. Though somewhat clumsily, this book gets this across and for that it is very much worth reading.

You are welcome to do your own research on John Dewey, but he has hardly corrupted America's schools -- in fact, we've hardly adopted his theories at all. If we had, we would no longer have SATs, LSATs, MCATs, or GPAs for that matter. We certainly wouldn't have the No Child Left Behind Act. This book is about school prayer, not John Dewey.

From Wikipedia: "Dewey's ideas, while quite popular, were never broadly and deeply integrated into the practices of American public schools, though some of his values and terms were widespread. Progressive education (both as espoused by Dewey, and in the more popular and inept forms of which Dewey was critical) was essentially scrapped during the Cold War, when the dominant concern in education was creating and sustaining a scientific and technological elite for military purposes. In the post-Cold War period, however, progressive education has reemerged in many school reform and education theory circles as a thriving field of inquiry. Dewey is often cited as creating the foundations for outcomes-based education and Standards-based education reform, and standards such as the NCTM mathematics standards, all of which emphasize critical thinking over memorization of facts."

Most of my thirty four years of teaching the physical sciences and math were enjoyable despite being beclouded by the frustrating confusion of the pernicious decline of educational statistics. Our most earnest efforts in "inovative" programs, better book and innumerable caimpaigns for bigger budgets and better schools notwithstanding, the stats continued their depressing downslides. Why??? Professor Edmondson answers that critical one word question most succinctly in the 123 pages of "John Dewey and the Decline of American Education. It is a compelling read for everyone.
Steve Masone, veteran educator and author of Hammer of Chalk

To be in education is to be, at some level, a political activist. After all, education is the water that feeds the tree of a democratic republic, and those who would educate are preparing the youth for citizenship in said society. Edmondson decries the state and direction of our society and this book is his activist response. While the focus of his scapegoating is John Dewey, the book is much less about Dewey's legacy and his work (which is superficially represented in the book - and naturally so; after all, who could possibly summarize in less than 130 pages the oevre of a man who published over 35 books and scores of articles over the course of his career?) than it is about the tragedy of a judicial interpretation of one of the cornerstones of our founding Constitutional principals: separation of church and state.

The book is interestingly researched and is a unique and lively discussion of Dewey. About half way through the text, though, it becomes clear that the object is not to protest the influence of an educational philosophy but to use the cover of education scholarship to engage in the debate about school prayer. In his discussion of the function of education as an apparatus for moralizing he points towards Dewey and Dewey's ambivalence for religious indoctrination as the root cause for this deficiency in 21st century American classrooms. It seems Dewey, in other words, is directly responsible for having prayer taken out of schools - an extreme claim to be sure.

If partisan scholarship isn't problematic for you, the book ofers some interesting insights into the educational philosophies of our contry's early political leaders. The book offers an interesting spin on the effects of our eduational system - spin that fails to address issues of race and, especially, class in exchange for cliched urgings for a return to a nostalgic educational past.

In 51 years of observing and experiencing the public education system in America I formed three broad impressions. The first was that educators must have a fondness for experimentation, since they always seemed to be reinventing the wheel. The second, was that all this reinventing was disturbing considering that those same educators didn't even seem to have a firm grasp on what outcome they desired. The third impression I had was that all the experimentation must be good for educators in the sense that it probably gives them ample excuse to go on taxpayer funded junkets to symposiums in swank places like San Franciso; all in the name of discovering the next best "method" of educating children. This book has made it clear why I developed those impressions over the years. The author of all the chaos in the schools is a man who wrote 130 books/papers on educational theory but could not manage or get results in the one actual classroom he taught in - namely John Dewy. Only a liberal could follow such a blind guide. Dewey might be likened to a Jimmy Carter of Education.

This book is not as in-depth as one might like, but the author points out in the preface that oceans of ink have already been spilled over Dewey and his theories. This book seeks to cut through those oceans and offer a brief and devastating critique of the reckless experimenter named Dewey. Dewey serves as type of person who thinks he knows better than parents how to raise and educate children, and who flippantly would use children as pawns in an end-game of social engineering. Sort of sounds like Marxism doesn't it?

I was teaching first-grade in Brooklyn when I read this book, and found a lot of Edmondson's arguments persuasive, given my classroom experience. Deweyan pedagogy is challenging, if not in some ways damaging, to implement even in the smallest ways in an actual classroom. That said, Edmondson's book isn't really about Dewey or his thought. It's a political work, which repeats a number of points made by educational traditionalists, but doesn't really represent Dewey's thought accurately, or engage with him critically in a serious way. Edmondson takes the portrait of Dewey presented by Russell Kirk in "The Conservative Mind" and imputes it to Dewey. Again, let me stress, I often agreed with Edmondson's assessment of American education, but his book is NOT an accurate or effective account of Dewey's thought and what's wrong with it. John Patrick Diggins' "The Promise of Pragmatism" remains the best account of Dewey's flaws, though it is primarily political, rather than pedagogical.

This author has perfectly described the school I taught at in Kuwait for seven years. It is a very difficult go for a woman teacher, as a woman (including mother) can not tell a male child of 12 what to do. What is not said in the book is how teachers were required to remove or tear out pages from the history book that had to do with Israel. There are now excellent books out written by Ph.D.'s in Islamic History that fully support what this author is stating. Islam teaches destruction of Jews, and acceptable forms of Jihad include deception. Many schools throughout the gulf area have as required reading Hitler's book about ridding the world of Jews and ANYONE who has spent any length of time in the Middle East knows this. "People of the book" who live in Muslim lands can not testify in court against a Muslim, may not work in a position of power over a Muslim, must pay a heavy tax, remove themselves from the sidewalk a Muslim walks on, etc. I left Kuwait recently because a principal was detained at the airport because she disciplined a Kuwaiti youth. All this information is on the web site warning international teachers away from the Middle East. Check international schools review. Also, check authors with Ph.D.s in Islamic History and you will find this book is RIGHT ON THE MONEY!!!!!

In the past ten years, I have witnessed much change. I do not agree with this author's opinion on everything, but it helps me see Qatar through a western point of view. I agree that we need to encourage and allow more differences, limit or stop honor killings, marriage to close relatives, prejudice toward people with disabilities or those with less fortunate abilities than ourselves. I agree that the teaching of revenge interferes with the rule of law, and no one should be teaching hatred, especially a teacher. I don't agree that we have done the least to help the Palestinians. It is a difficult problem but not recognizing Israel does not help us either. I laughed most hard about the students - what funny descriptions - but I noticed how respectful they were of the teacher and they shared their opinions with each other. As for being terrorists on the roads, we are and I would much rather drive in London! Change has been good for us and I also believe that Qatar will be a leader for the Middle East and all the problems. Education will give us a more positive future. Thanks also to my son for helping me write a better book review.

This is not a book about a school, it is a book about an Arab culture that does not allow freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or the freedom of personal expression, including sexual preference. Betrayal is supporting suicide bombing, lawlessness, honor killings, child rape, forced marriage in adolescence. Betrayal is supporting the destruction of Israel. Betrayal is staying silent in the face of terrorism and lawlessness, teaching the right to avenge yourself by destroying lives and property. For any American who values the Bill of Rights this is a priority read. You will identify with the "characters," but stay focused on the real issues this book addresses. In its simplicity, it allows you to grasp the seriousness of the Middle East and why problems there may be insurmountable. As a publisher I rated it 4 because of its readability and the need for the average American to wake up to the critical nature of the Middle East crisis. I seriously doubt Qatar will pull the "rabbit out of the hat" with education, but it is a badly needed start.

This book is simply a great read because it uses simple classroom illustrations to open up a dialog on very serious issues. The school could be any place - anywhere, student's names are fake. The author causes me to begin asking questions Americans should have been asking, such as 1) why isn't Israel included on Arab maps, 2) what have Arab leaders done to resolve the Palestinian problem, 3) where are the billions of dollars given to the Palestinian people, 4) why haven't Palestinians assimilated into neighboring countries, 5) why are Arab nations always pointing their finger to western nations to solve their problems, 6) why is the middle east in such a mess??? Is it because old tribal customs still practiced today or their own teachings of hatred and revenge are causing them to implode? Let's begin asking real questions about real issues prevalent in this book. I'd be seriously interested in interviewing this author!

The main problem with self publishing is that, to make a profit, you have to say outrageous things to catch the reader's attention. The real facts of the matter tend to be distorted in the process.

The back material, for instance, declares that Arabic culture believes "Israel should cease to exist." This is a bizarre statement. Culture is supposed to be intrinsic and deeply rooted- why would Arab "culture" have an opinion about a state less than a century old? If she means to suggest Arabs are anti-Semitic, this is simply false: Arabic "culture" has a long-standing tradition of regarding Jews as Dhimmi, people of the book, whose right to worship is accepted. It is Europeans, not Arabs, who have deep anti-Semitic roots in their culture, as evidenced by continued persecutions from the Crusades to Black Death hysteria to the Holocaust. In any case, Qatar, the country where Mrs. Sukraw's story unfolds, is one of few Arab countries to recognize the state of Israel, and even hosts an Israeli consulate.

I'm sure that Mrs. Sukraw's class was awfully behaved, and probably said things like "Mustafa wants to be a terrorist" to get a rise out of her. Her class was probably trying to push her buttons, since by her own admission she was fearful of Middle Eastern terrorism even before disembarking on Qatari soil. But it is irresponsible for Mrs. Sukraw to generalize about Middle Easterners as a whole based on this ill-behaved group of 8 kids. The country that employed her and her husband deserved better.

I'm sure that the sort of people who buy a book like this do so in order to have previous prejudices confirmed, and there is little that my review can do about that. I do want prospective readers to know that I myself have lived in Qatar for 4 years now and have found the Qataris to be a gracious and welcoming people, if a little reckless on the roadways. Qatar is a key regional US ally, committed to educational reform, and committed to being a productive member of the international community, as evidenced by their bid to host the Olympics in 2016. Great disparities exist in wealth, and some people are religiously conservative, but that depiction fits Mrs. Sukraw's American Pacific Northwest home as well.

If you want to read about a fairly atypical classroom experience by a woman predisposed against Arabs and their "culture", by all means read this book. Otherwise don't do her the favor of purchasing something so self-serving and irresponsible.

Most language courses give you a lot of words and phrases which are needed if you are a tourist. This one concentrates on what you need if you work in the schools. The author writes very clearly and the lessons follow a natural progression. Everything I learned here was useful. A very good investment. Get the book with the tapes. They are well worth it.

I liked this book because it has vocabulary specific to education so I could brush up on certain words I might need to use. One thing that I thought was lacking was vocabulary needed for Parent/Teacher conferences. I thought there was a lot about talking to students, but not much about talking about them with parents.

I found this book to be very helpful as a resource in my classroom. With several Spanish speaking students (preschool) I repeatedly returned to this book for answers. I do have some knowledge of Spanish. I can see how this book could not be as helpfull to an educator with little or no Spanish language background. It was very relevant to school situations. I have used it as a resource when dealing with students from 2 years old to 20 years old. Every school should be required to have this wonderful book available to its educators.

As a special education teacher in an inner city school, I am in constant contact w/the parents of my students, most of whom are of Hispanic descent.

Since I have had prior experience w/Spanish, I am able to make good use of this resource. The authors provide vocabulary and phrases for a pretty good number of school situations. I think they wrote this book under the presupposition that the user would construct their own sentences w/the vocabulary and phrases provided.

Which leads me to one of the big weaknesses of this book. The authors would have done well to use conversation vignettes to introduce the topics they cover as giving the reader a context for use would go a long way to assimilating this vocabulary. As it stands now, this book is a glorified dictionary and phrase book; there was a better way to present a book of this nature that would have been far more useful than what it is in its current form.

This book should be called "Spanish vocabulary for educators" as that's about all it offers. An occasional poorly presented grammar lesson is thrown in. At one point Mr. Harvey says a grammatical concept is too hard to explain so just find some Spanish speaking people and listen to them. I would have the exact quote (which I did when I wrote to the publisher about this insult to educators) but I threw the book out. Don't waste your money on this piece of trash; a good dictionary will serve you better.

American author, Christine L. Benagh, has written a moving biographical and historical journey of an Englishman who went to Russia in 1901 to escape the disillusionment of his faith-shattering theological education. As Charles Sydney Gibbes' reputation as an English tutor in St. Petersburg grows, he comes to the attention of the royal family, whom he eventually serves for ten years until their tragic demise. Through Gibbes' letters and papers, we catch an intimate view of the Tsar, the Empress and their children in their home or on vacation, having tea, doing their studies, playing games and going to Russian Orthodox services. Their lives are placed into historical context with quotes from the biographies, letters and papers of people who knew them.

Sadly, Gibbes is among the first to investigate the fateful Ipatiev house in Ekatarinburg, where the Romanovs and their entourage were murderously slaughtered by the Bolsheviks. Due to his intimate knowledge of the Romanovs, as well as his command of the Russian language, Gibbes continues working in Russia for a time for the British High Command. He eventually ends up in Manchuria, working for the Chinese Maritime Service, during which time he adopts a teenaged Russian orphan and studies firsthand various Eastern religions.

At the age of 52, Gibbes decides to return to his Christian roots, but he is once more shattered by politics in the Anglican Church. After a much soul searching, he embraces the Orthodox Church, where, back in England, he is tonsured as a monk and then ordained into the priesthood.

As Father Nicholas Gibbes, he spends the remaining years of life devoted to the Orthodox faith in England, and to preserving the memory of the Romanov family with the many artifacts and relics he personally collected.

While this outstanding book is called a "spiritual journey," the spiritual journey is actually a pretty slender thread through these turbulent times until the last two chapters. It works as an interesting biography within this period of history, as an intimate portrait of the royal family, as a small slice of Russian (and English) history, and finally as a spiritual odyssey. I'd recommend this to those interested in the Romanovs, the Bolshevik Revolution, spiritual journeys or the Orthodox Church.

If you would like a good, honest, brief explination of the events leading to the fall of the Romanovs, this is a great source. Nicholas II is one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented historical figures. Written from the perspective of Mr. Gibbes we have an insider's view of the events discribed. This book is well written, and presented in an interesting manner that keeps the reader turning the pages. Having read many books on the subject of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, I find this to be one of the better ones. Read this and Massie's "Nicholas and Alexandra" and you will have a good picture of what really happened. Thank you Chiristine for this excellent study!

Although this book is one of many written about the tragic deaths of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, it is different than those which often appear explotive. Gibbes's relationship with the Tsar and his family provides us with a deeper insight into the family life, and the unshakable rich faith of this noble family. The book is one of a kind, and an "easy" read. As one who has read many books on the subject of Russian hsitory, I could not recommend it more highly.

I bought this book expecting its majority to discuss the life of Charles Sydney Gibbes, but it's more of an ill-researched portrait of history twisted to fit the author's opnions. Although the first and last few pages are devoted entirely to Gibbes, the rest is about this mass conspiracy that lead up to the revoultion that rarely mentions Gibbes at all (at least a hundred pages do not even relate to his journey or him in any way). I prefer a favorable picture of the imperial family, but even I cannot believe these "facts" presented, espcially since Ms. Benagh doesn't even to refute other opinions; moreover, she seems to say the starving peasants could have lingered on for a few more days. She uses a maximum of eight sources to support her book, all published and most are famous first-hand sources written in the 20s-40s that have been prooven to have some major falacies. Do not believe its claims to be using new resources from the collapse of the Soviet Union because unsolved mysteries in here have been solved and thoroughly explianed in many other books. This book does a decent job as presenting Gibbes as an affable person but is primarily conncerned on trying to rewrite history. If you decide to purchase this book, I want to forewarn you to read a good Romanov or Russian history book beforehand to be able to identify An Englishman in the Court of the Tsar's faults.

Like most people who would be interested in this book, I was expecting some insight into the life of the last tsar and his family, as seen by someone close to the family. But, as the title implies, it's his SPIRITUAL journey the book chronicles, with a few well-known anecdotes on the imperial family thrown in. If your looking for a book on the Romanovs or Imperial Russian history, don't buy this book.

Ruth Hubbard uses the rhetoric of exaggeration to try to convince us to abandon genetic research. But if genes didn't matter then monkeys could talk and if environment didn't matter then we wouldn't have schools. Obviously they BOTH matter.

Let us use the objective methods of science to document the specifics of what is genetically determined and what is environmentally determined.

Any serious AIDS researcher knows that without genetic research we have no chance of defeating AIDS. Obviously we need to study genetics to maintain progress against disease.

A 5-star book. If there weren't so much hype about gene therapy there would be no need for this book. But bad science and misinformation coming from those with commercial or political interests has given the American public the idea that gene therapy has possibilities. To date, gene therapy has not cured one disease. Ruth Hubbard finally breaks ranks to reveal the truth about genetics.

Hubbard does deserve credit for throwing some skepticism on "the next big thing" in science, genetic technology. Unfortunately, she combines her skeptical analysis with her hopelessly egalitarian political views, obscuring any positive contributions this book could have. Hubbard goes through every expected cliche - Nazi imagery (social pundits never tire of this), playing the "race card, and discouraging scientific progress as "unneccessary". Read this book only if you wish to glimpse the future of awful politically-correct rhetoric.

Ruth Hubbard is a professor emerita of biology at Harvard and a member of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a prominent national bioethics board. In this book (co-written with her son-in-law, Elijah Wald), she takes everything you think you know about genes, genetic health care screening, DNA fingerprinting, the Human Genome Project, and the search for a gay gene and other behavior-related genes, and blows your mind by explaining, point by point, exactly how unreliable, meaningless, and discriminatory each of these much-lauded technologies is. After reading this book, you'll never read a newspaper article about the latest genetic study the same way again. Don't miss it.

Dr. Hubbard gives her readers much to think about, and she backs up everything she's written. She explains how the popularly-held reductionist view of genetics does not tell the whole story. Her book explains how the public often only hears one side of the story when it comes to the potential of the latest genetic technologies.

The author is a doctor with a profound respect for reason and good sense. He makes cogent, non-religious arguments based on statistics and studies from the leading psychologists of the day. His arguments are based on reason and his own experience as a doctor. Through out the book, the author weaves in conversations with patients and their sexual struggles, giving a human face to the positions he takes. His advice is sober and rational, which is probably why it received acclaim from Christians, Jews, Muslims, and non-religious groups. One big point he drives home again and again is that America needed a sexual revolution, but that we just got the wrong one. For those fed up with our society's sexual health, this is an excellent book that will enable you to make non-theological arguments against the latest sexual trends and fads of our declining sexual culture.

I am a psychobiology and i know for fat that the human kind needs sex, this books refers and talks about abstenence, humans needs sex, they just have to learn how to control their desires that that is it. Don't waste your money on it ok.

This book is very disappointing. It's a sort of "empty" book, full of cheapest moral consideration et TOTALY lacking any spiritual/religious notion... It has no single reference to catholic teaching (though it's presented as a sort of "catholic book"). It cares some terrible misconceptions about humain psychology and sexuality.

If you read want to have a clear and courageous view of what sexual wisdom is and should be, read a very old but extremly fresh book by the Pope Jean Paul II called "Love and Responsability"

This book really helped me out, and I CAN relate to what this book talks about, my life was going downhill because of all these stupid ideas like "you need sex". This book is written by someone Catholic but the book sticks to more scientific and natural grounds, you can already find a bunch of Catholic answers out there, but this book approaches the whole thing at a different angle. Sure we know having premarital sex is wrong and a sin, but wrong in what way, how does it affect you, and those around you, and in how many ways is it harmful, this book gives you those answers and so much more. And think, do you need sex like you need clothing, food, water, sleep? Will you die if you don't have enough sex? On the contrary, you have better chances of suffering and even dying using sex wrongly, in fact, I doubt any one has ever died from not having sex. Now sure, theres the hormones thing and you can get that desire, but what you decide to do is a CHOICE, not a need, nothing bad will happen if you ignore those desires and in fact it will bother you less over time when you ignore them. So please consider this book, I can see things in this world now that I did not notice before, I knew bad things were happening, but i never truly SAW them. Just like the saying, "the truth will set you free", and this was it for me. And remember, those that will not hear the truth can not be told the truth by anyone, so please don't be one of the many ignorant or proud people and poopoo this book, no one is forcing you to read it nor are they forcing you to believe it, God gave you a free will so use it, its your choice what YOU want to believe. So read it and think about it.

This book may be the antidote for the sickness that now pervades our society in relationship to sex. Abortion, sexually tranmitted diseases, divorce, serial monogamous marriages, and sexual perversions are rampant.

Those of us who are parents and grandparents live in fear that our cherished children and grandchildren will become prey to one or more of these sicknessness.

American culture has become sex obsessed. The unhappiness of people increases in direct relationshiip to the "sexual enlightenment" they have experienced since the 1960's. Americans have been told that the answer to all of problems is better sex, guilt-free sex,and sex with no responsibility.

Why then has the teen suicide rate increased, why have marriages become more unstable. It is not because there is a dearth of information. In fact, there is a dearth of the WRONG kind of information.

Dr. Wetzel, in this timely book sets the record straight.

Sex without responsility and love is bad sex.

Women are hurt the most when either party is used "just for sex."

The answer to increased abortions and teen pregnancies is not more availability of abortion services or contraceptives. The answer is more responsilibity and self discipline in regard to sexual relations.

All of these facts are counter-cultural. The media sends the messages that say pleasure is the ultimate end of life--that people have "needs" and it is essential that they be met.

"Sexual Wisdom" is wisdom indeed. What we need is not more and better sex, but more and better love.

Martin's book has an interesting premise, that the life experience of John Dewey was his education. That makes logical sense. Martin was privy to documents from the Dewey Center that were just made available to the public. The book is full of thought provaking information. I especially enjoyed the parts about his high school and college teaching styles. However, the author raises several unanswered questons? Why did Dewey teach high school and college classes different? What was his espistemology? Overall, the work is a good read and helped the reader gain insights into a complex philosopher. The book so inspired me that I traveled to Oil City,Pennsylvania to see if they had anything on Dewey. All they had was an historical marker where the school was, which is now a firehouse, and a file at the library. One question lingers, what happened to Dewey's dissertation on Kant? No one knows? The mystery of History.

It is heartening to see that this book is NOT subject to the "star inflation" that plagues much of this website! [I mean, do you really think a majority of books should receive 4 or 5 stars!]. "The Education of John Dewey" is a solid biography of an interesting man who played an important role in American intellectual history. However, the book just didn't grab me. Not like "Lincoln's Virtues: an Ethical Biography" for example. One note about Dewey's philosophy. I don't see what was so new about pragmatism/naturalism/progressivism or whatever you want to call it. Wasn't Dewey's emphasis on the importance of the continuing pursuit of truth just a modern version of the Socratic method????????

Jay Martin has accomplished a monumental task in his efforts to uncover the true natures of John Dewey and his colorful life. My interest is in educational psychology and pedagogy. I admit a bit of disappointment in that Dewey's theories - - philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical - - were not explored as much as I had hoped. Nonetheless, I feel that Martin's book is a good primer for anyone who is interested in not only Dewey but, also, names such as Parker, and Tyler. The biography's deep historical basis allows readers of this and closely related materials to have a better contextual grasp how U.S. philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical theories were formulated in the late 18th and early 20th Centuries.

Martin endeavors to write a psychological portrait of John Dewey, but falls short. Ironically, the least developed aspect of Dewey's life in this volume is that of Dewey, the psychologist. Dewey was an early member (& president) of the American Psychological Assn. His observation of the reflex arc is still a staple of introductory psychology and the social psychological concepts and models he developed with George Herbert Mead and others prefigured much of the contemporary work in social cognition. Important figures in academic clinical psychology such as George Kelly and Seymour Sarason drew heavily on Dewey's work and Sarason has remained an important champion. No mention is made that Dewey's great friend, James McKeen Catell (a recurring, but little described figure in the book), was diametrically opposed to Dewey on many important issues in psychology including the roles of inheritance and environment in the development of intelligence and the conception of intelligence, itself. Dewey's ability to remain close to people whose ideas he vigorously opposed was but one of the inspiring aspects of Dewey's character. The shortcomings of this book made me more aware than ever that a full scale biography of Dewey, the psychologist, is needed rather than another biography of Dewey the philosopher, especially a tepid, uneven one like this.

Martin, a humanities professor and a practicing psychonanalyst with an eclectic background occasionally deals with psychiatric disorder in Dewey's life (and the lives of his family members) and trots out some watered down neo-Freudian interpretations of his family life. Yet much of the time, Dewey, the man, remains elusive. Martin makes a number of preposterous claims about Dewey: he tells us that Dewey was "impoverished" for most of his professional life, although his salary was far in excess of that of an ordinary wage earner of his time and his home had servants. We also are told that Dewey was unique among 20th century leftists in his rejection of Marxism and Communism. In fact, Dewey was one of many American leftists who were opposed to Marx and Communism. American socialism probably owes more to the social gospel and non-Marxist political economists like Veblen than to Marx, Lenin, or Stalin. Martin also ignores the vigorous and polemical support Dewey gave to World War I and the strains it caused between Dewey and friends like Jane Addams. Instead, we are told that Dewey was a consistent pacifist driven by a concern that war would undermine democratic values. Remarks like these demonstrate Martin's ignorance of Dewey's life, as well as an ignorance of the social and political environment in which Dewey lived. Much of the discussion of Dewey, the philosopher, is laden with academic philosophy that is insufficiently explained for the educated layperson. Many well-educated people are not familiar with Hegel or the Vienna Circle or only dimly recall these from an introductory course. Many are drawn to Dewey because of his educational ideas or his importance in 20th century demoratic socialism, hence, it is probably not reasonable to expect that readers will automatically be drawn to the various debates within academic philosophy.

This book is an easier read than the dense, often turgid works of Robert Westbrook or Steven Rockefeller. On the other hand, the book lacks the breezy, often humorous, tone of Alan Ryan's biography. Ryan's book is a much better introduction to Dewey---witty and scholarly, yet extremely readable. Although Ryan also focuses on Dewey the philosopher, he is more knowledgable about many aspects of Dewey's life and environment than Martin. He recognizes, for example, the importance and the the deeply flawed character of G. Stanley Hall, who provided Dewey with an introduction to operationism and to developmental psychology. Ryan also points out the limitations of Dewey's sometimes wooly writing. One of the problems with reading Dewey is that Dewey, the philosopher, often requires an understanding of Dewey, the psychologist, or Dewey, the political activist, to understand many of the basic concepts that guided Dewey decades into his effort to develop a coherent worldview of pragmatism. The same problem occurs when one looks at him as psychologist, as a pedagogue or, as a political commentator/activist. He was all of these things in all his professional identities, to some extent. Despite the recent run of Dewey biographies and the renewed interest in pragmatism, there's still more to learn about Dewey. Unfortunately, only well-read afficionados will get much from Martin's book and many may be distracted by it's shortcomings.

I bought this book because I'd seen good reviews about the SAE from XAM. I took the Professional test and luckily past... This study guide did little to prepare me for the test. Would NOT recommend.

I took the test and I am waiting for results but I did like this book and recommend it to anyone.

I took this test and passed on the first try in March 2008. I bought this book and the 'CliffsTestPrep' study guide in preparation for this test. I have no education in professional education with an unrelated degree in a more technical science. Basically, I was going into the testing process needing a book to teach me the concepts and prepare me for the test.

Now that I have taken the test, I can tell you that this book is NOT good. Besides the standard poor editing, formatting and typos that you can expect from all XAM books, overall there was nothing very useful about this book.

The front of the book (the part where they 'teach' you the content of the test) is very vague and poorly written. The one practice exam in the back does a good job of testing you on the front of the book, but DOES NOT AT ALL REPRESENT WHAT YOU WILL SEE ON THE REAL TEST!!!

Overall the concepts are similar, but there are significant enough differences that you will not recognize the information when it comes time to take the test. There is VERY SPECIFIC terminology on the test with which you want to be familiar.

I do not believe the people that put this book together have ever seen the real test or talked to anybody who has.

This study guide is well-researched and an excellent reference for new educators. The guide is aligned to the Florida's outlined guidelines for professional educator standards, and it provides specific information for the skills compiling each competency. Written by teachers, this guide covers topics including how to manage a classroom, how to motivate students, how students learn, how to grow as an educator, and more! Whether used for a new teacher just entering the classroom or as a reference during your teaching career, this book is a must-have for teachers!