Education Books

When my son was three, he made me read this book to him so many times that even now, 22 years later, I know the entire thing by heart.

Kids love this book. Parents do, too, at least the first 10 or 12 thousand times they read it to the kids!

I adored this book as a kid (I'm in my 30s now). I haven't gotten my new copy yet, but I think there is a lesson about temperance at the end, but that's not what I recall: I just remember the sheer joy of more, more, more. With books that use so few and such simple words, it's often hard for an adult to distinguish the adequate from the great. Speaking for my very young self, I can tell you that this book is great.

This is my favorite children's book - it is especially fun to read out loud. It has a cute level of humor and I've even had a class of 3-year-olds laughing at it. A good learn to read book - but also a good story in general.

I love reading this book to my daughter (2 1/2). I got it when i was a small child and have held onto it as one of my favorites. It is quickly becoming her favorite as well...the story flows so well its really fun to read...my daughter likes to see how fast I can read it without messing up.

I love this book. It lends itself to many activities with monkeys or spaghetti.

G.R. Kearney did a terrific job on researching this book, and not just the technical stuff. The human element of the story comes alive under the watchful eye of Kearney's storytelling. The students, teachers, staff & administrators at Cristo Rey owe a great debt to Kearney for his bringing light to the innovative systems put in place there.

If you have heard one too many depressing statistics about how education in the US is on a serious decline- read this book to lift your spirits. Creativity & hard work brought this project to life & gives hope to an ailing system.

My hat goes off to Kearney & I recommend this book to everyone.

What started as an idea in the early 1990s has grown to become a growing national network of high schools in many of America's toughest urban environments. GR Kearney tells the story of the Cristo Rey Network which started as the small Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago in 1994 and has grown to include nearly 2 dozen schools nationwide. Kearney tells the story from several perspectives, interviewing founding members of the faculty, staff and board of the school as well as weaving tales of students throughout the pages. Kearney himself volunteered at the original Cristo Rey school and lends a perspective that is critical to understanding the Cristo Rey story.

More Than a Dream is a must read for those looking to make a difference, or at least want to read about some people who have, in the lives of thousands of innercity youth in America's urban battlefields.

Building a school, building a future - it's what Chicago Jesuits sought to do when they built a new college prep school for the children of Hispanic working poor. "More Than a Dream: The Cristo Rey Story" is an inspiring tale of an improbable success story of keeping ones faith to keep going despite the innumerable barriers one faces in such an a situation. Author G. R. Kearney should know, as he works as a teacher and a coach at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School as part of their Jesuit Alumni Volunteer program which Kearney himself helped found. "It's a story that needed to be told," says Kearney. "More Than a Dream: The Cristo Rey Story" would be a grand addition to both Christian and Educational community library collections and for any reader who would seek to learn how exactly this school rose up almost nothing, and how it seeks to help others do the same.

I was given a copy of this book by a colleague whose company employs Cristo Rey students. Frankly didn't think I'd ever open the book until I was stuck waiting for a delayed plane. However, once I did open it, I found I couldn't put it down. The book is about a group of priests who want to start a school for poor kids in Chicago, but it's much more than that. It's the story of an entrepreneurial triumph that will inspire anyone in business or struggling with adversity. It's also a great story of young people working for a better future. I highly recommend this book.

This is an excellent book that outlines the foundation of the first Cristo Rey school in Chicago. The Jesuits created Cristo Rey Chicago in the late 1990's, and now the Cristo Rey Network includes over 20 schools. The Jesuits started the program to provide a college prep high school experience for economically challenged students in the inner city. I teach at the Cristo Rey school in Kansas City, and found this book an invaluable resource to my own teaching / administrative roles. It was great to read about the Jesuit's initial desire that drove them to found the school, and also to read about the logistic struggles they faced in those tough first years. Since it is such an inspiring story, I'd recommend to anyone outside of education as well.

This beautiful story about a teacher who cares for her flower garden (tilling the soil, watching for weeds, catering to each flowers different needs, as well as noticing the differences between the various flowers) makes a great gift for any teacher, care giver, etc. The symbolism is so true between the flowers and children! It's a very sweet story!

I found this book at our local library. My kids never got the concept of the book. But it is perfect for grown ups! I am going to have each of the kids and parents from my kids preschool class sign the inside cover. Then, along with the book, we will give the teachers a large plant for their yard. That way, they will have two reminders of the influence they have had on our class.

I bought this book to give a fabulous pre-school teacher. If you have a teacher that has really made a difference to your young child- this might be the book for you.

Mrs. Spitzer is a teacher at Tremont Elementary School in Room #108. That's an important number because each year, at summer's end, the school principal brings Mrs. Spitzer a packet of seeds. All year Mrs. Spitzer tends to the seeds. She waters them, feeds them, and makes sure they have sun and room to grow. And she watches them carefully because she doesn't want pests or weeds to intrude.

And at the end of the growing season, Mrs. Spitzer is happy because she sees her seeds bloom. When the year is over, her job is complete, but the seeds that grew into beautiful flowers will keep on growing and maturing, thanks to her help.

Mrs. Spitzer knows about children and plants. She knows that they often need the same things to bloom.

When I first opened Mrs. Spitzer's Garden I thought it was a children's book (it can be enjoyed by children) but it really is a lovely thank you to that special teacher who loves and cares for your child during the school year. That teacher is much like a gardener. Very much like Mrs. Spitzer.

This is a thoughtful gift to the teacher who has touched a child's life. The illustrations are warm, cozy and inviting.

Armchair Interviews says: The perfect gift for your child's favorite teacher!

Tuesday, May 8th is National Teacher Day. What a perfect gift for your favorite teacher or your child's favorite teacher.

MY favorite teacher is my daughter who teaches first grade. This book is wonderfully written and beautifully illustrated. The illustrations will be enjoyed by young and old alike. The story line is charming and caring.

Mrs. Spitzer starts each new season with new seeds she has planted. Throughout the year she watches them grow and blossom. What a lovely story this book tells about teaching and children.

I can't wait to give this gift to my daughter. I am sure it will be one she will treasure for years to come.

Thank you!

Pam

My Life on the Rock: A Rebel Returns to the Catholic Faith by Jeff Cavins is a poignant story of a young man searching for God. Running from the faith of his childhood, his journey brings him full circle to finally embrace that faith once again with startling enthusiasm and zeal. He recalls as a child yearning to know God and vaguely sensing that there was something more to life than just the normal childhood preoccupations of sports, school, and making other people laugh with his knack for comedy. He faced several painful and humiliating experiences, but with each event he was drawn ever more deeply by this desire for a knowledge of the divine.
His spiritual journey began with Catholic baptism and the typical religious education of a suburban Catholic attending public school in America in the 1960's and 70's. He had a spiritual conversion experience as a young adult, got married, and entered a Christian Bible college. Later he became pastor of a large church, and finally came back into the Catholic Church after instruction and spiritual direction from priests, a bishop, and his own father. He recounts with much candor and humility his feelings, hopes, and fears throughout the years of searching and ends the book with a positive eagerness for the continuation of the story. A very uplifting read, to be sure.

My husband and I just loved this book. It is very easy interesting and easy to read. It kept us glued to the pages. Jeff Cavins writes about his journey out of the Catholic faith, being a Protestant minister and then his journey back into the Catholic faith. He is a very well educated man, but writes in a very readable, down-to-earth fashion. It's a great book and I would highly recommend it for any Catholic who wants to be inspired about their faith, anyone questioning their faith, or for anyone who has left the Catholic faith.

I loved this book, could not put it down! I too was born and raised Catholic, but have since left that faith and am involved with a Four Square Church now. Jeff's journey was very compelling and I so enjoyed his love for the Lord it was cool to read about the courage he showed doing God's will over his own on several occasions durning very hard times. I can only imagine what his family had to have gone though. I didn't agree with a few of his conclusions, and I didn't appreciated when he slighted worship services in a gym or high school and referred to returning to the Catholic Faith as "coming home..." but being a former Catholic - it greatly helped me to understand why they hold the rituals, traditions and worship of Saints, Mary, and the Priests, even if they are not biblicy sound.

Sometimes books that you read touch your heart in ways you can't explain. This book did for me. As Jeff explained why he left the church, becasue he wanted more of relationship with Jesus. But didn't feel he got that in Catholic Church. But life sends you in many roads and for him he went back to his faith. As Catholiic I understand that love of God. It inspire me on why I am Catholic becasue of the Euchrist. Because it was in the bible, I can receive his preious body everyday. And that to me is the Journey.

Jeff's story of his life and his eventual return to the Catholic church was very touching and heartfelt. Jeff made the book very personal, and he presents his journey in a very heartfelt and comfortable manner. I greatly appreciated his honesty and sincerity, and his zeal for the Church is contagious.

I'm beginning to realize that George Gissing is an author who is relatively unknown by the general public but who is frequently studied/referenced by academics. The main reason why I think this is true (and this relates to the book at hand) is that Gissing himself had more of an academic temperament than a writing temperament. He was very adept at analyzing the world around him and commenting on it to a point of depressing realism, but he wasn't a storyteller. In fact, he struggled with creating enough storylines in order to support himself. Thus, while his books give impressive looks at Victorian life, they don't always leave a reader fully satisfied.

Why do I say this so confidently? Well, as Gissing was particularly self-aware and as he was particularly oppressed when writing "New Grub Street," in this novel he writes about what it's like to be a writer in London in the 1880's and 1890's. He essentially writes about his own life and those he find around him, all of whom are trying to make a living on writing.

Gissings seems to portray himself through the main character, Reardon. When the story opens, Reardon is struggling. His sophisticated wife is getting fed up with their impoverished lifestyle and with her husband's inability to write decent material. Reardon, a sensitive soul, is floundering under mounting pressure and stress. He is torn between his desire to write sophisticated, meaningful material and the public demand for "fluff." The more stressed laid on him, the less he is able to create and stick with any plausible fiction novel. He becomes more and more fererish and unable to work, and he is devastated as he loses his wife's love and respect.

Around this central character Reardon, Gissing builds a very full and weighty cast of characters. A small sampling of these characters are:
- The embittered, older column writer/reviewer, Yule, whose temperament has made so many enemies during his career that he is still laboring hard to support his small family at the end of his life.
- Yule's daugher, Marion, who is very clever but who is also very vulnerable. Her education has made her too good for many positions and marriages but her lack of money makes her a poor match for the educated class.
- Reardon's friend Milvain, who is an ambitious young man who has no problem writing exactly what the masses want. He knows his talents, he knows the market, and he knows his stuff won't last for posterity. But he is determined to live a comfortable life, make a strategic marriage and become a semi-respected man.
- Biffen, another friend of Reardon's, sympathizes most with Reardon's situation and condition. Two peas in a pod, these men spend long hours discuss meter, prose and ancient poetry.

I found myself continually amazed at Gissing's amazing ability to get into the head of many individuals in his large cast and to see how the world makes sense through each's eyes. Gissing also provides us with a wealth of information about the Victorian publishing scene. It was amazing to read that writers and publishers then were struggling with the same issues writers and publishers are struggling with today.

Additionally, Gissing gives you an unglorified look at poverty and the impoverished educated class of London at that time. While Dickens' works on the poor is idyllic and sentimental, Gissing simply relates the life he has known. There is nothing exceptional or amazing, and Gissing seems to argue that poverty takes character out of a man rather then build up a man's character.

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating piece...though perhaps a slow read. For those interested in publishing, writing, realistic portrayals of Victorian England, or other such topics, this is a fantastic work.

Poor Gissing! I suspect his miserable, self-destructive life fuelled his wonderful novels much as (we now know) Dickens's traumatic "blacking-factory" experience explains so much of the nightmare world of those gargantuan fictions. Gissing greatly admired Dickens, and like Dostoyevsky, seems to have appreciated the grim side of Dickens most. Not much humor in Gissing; but there is the same shabby poetry one used to see in Bloomsbury back in the 1960s. The same wonderful appreciation of futile, obsessive scholarly lives. Gissing is a great poet and sometimes a rather fine moralist. His pictures of London rival those of the Master (Dickens --and Dore). Don't miss him. Start with "Workers in the Dawn" and "The Nether World"--his passion more than compensates for his crudities. Remember: he was also a very accomplished classicist--more of a scholar than any other major Victorian novelist! A not insignificant fact.

George Gissing's 1891 novel, "New Grub Street," is likely one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Certainly, in its descriptions of literary life, be it in publishing, or in my own realm of graduate scholarship, the situations, truths, and lives Gissing portrays are still all too relevant. "New Grub Street" itself points to the timelessness of Gissing's portrayals - as Grub Street was synonymous, even in the eighteenth century with the disrepute of hack writing, and the ignominy of having to make a living by authorship. One of Gissing's primary laments throughout the novel is that the life of the mind is of necessity one which is socially isolating and potentially devastating to any kind of relationships, familial or otherwise. "New Grub Street" gives us a world where friendship is never far from enmity, where love is never far from the most bitter kinds of hatred.

The anti-heroes of "New Grub Street" are presented to us as the novel begins - Jasper Milvain is a young, if somewhat impoverished, but highly ambitious man, eager to be a figure of influence in literary society at whatever cost. His friend, Edwin Reardon, on the other hand, was brought up on the classics, and toils away in obscurity, determined to gain fame and reputation through meaningful, psychological, and strictly literary fiction. Family matters beset the two - Jasper has two younger sisters to look out for, and Edwin has a beautiful and intelligent wife, who has become expectant of Edwin's potential fame. Throw into the mix Miss Marian Yule, daughter of a declining author of criticism, whose own reputation was never fully realized, and who has indentured his daughter to literary servitude, and we have a pretty list of discontented and anxious people struggling in the cut-throat literary marketplace of London.

Money is of supreme importance in "New Grub Street," and it would be pointless to write a review without making note of it. As always, the literary life is one which is not remunerative for the mass of people who engage upon it, and this causes no end of strife in the novel. As Milvain points out, the paradox of making money in the literary world is that one must have a well-known reputation in order to make money from one's labours. At the same time, one must have money in order to move in circles where one's reputation may be made. This is the center of the novel's difficulties - should one or must one sacrifice principles of strictly literary fame and pander to a vulgar audience in order to simply survive? The question is one in which Reardon finds the greatest challenges to his marriage, his self-esteem, and even his very existence. For Jasper Milvain and his sisters, as well as for Alfred and Marian Yule, there is no question that the needs of subsistence outweigh most other considerations.

"New Grub Street" profoundly questions the relevance of classic literature and high culture to the great mass of people, and by proxy, to the nation itself. For England, which propagated its sense of international importance throughout the nineteenth century by encouraging the study of English literature in its colonial holdings, the matter becomes one of great significance. The careers of Miss Dora Milvain and Mr. Whelpdale, easily the novel's two most charming, endearing, and sympathetic characters, attempt to illustrate the ways in which modern literature may be profitable to both the individual who writes it and the audiences towards which they aim. They may be considered the moral centers of the novel, and redeem Gissing's work from being entirely fatalistic.

"New Grub Street" is a novel that will haunt me for quite some time. As a "man of letters" myself, I can only hope that the novel will serve as an object lesson, and one to which I may turn in hope and despair. The novel is well written, its characters and situations drawn in a very realistic and often sympathetic way. Like the ill-fated "ignobly decent" novel of Mr. Biffen's, "Mr. Bailey, Grocer," "New Grub Street" may seem less like a novel, and more like a series of rambling biographical sketches, but they are indelible and lasting sketches of literary lives as they were in the original Grub Street, still yet in Gissing's time, and as they continue to-day. Very highly recommended.

I found Jasper Milvain, the "alarmingly modern young man," to be the most interesting character in Gissing's New Grub Street for a number of reasons, the most significant of which is that he evinces what can only be considered a modernist's consciousness in his approach to writing. That is, while it soon becomes clear to the reader that Milvain represents the antithesis of what Edwin Reardon personifies-i.e., the work of literature as an emanation of author's native genius-and thus one of the intercalated plots of the novel involves the incremental success of Milvain as a modern man of letters, and the concomitant gradual abjection of Reardon. In a manner of speaking, then, Milvain and Reardon's fates emerge from a common source, namely some sea change in the reading public's (the consumer's) preferences and tendencies.

Milvain identifies as vulgar the most lucrative market for the product of the man of letter's labor. The vulgarians, or "quarter educated," drive the market (479), and since they have been determined to desire nothing more than chatty ephemera, they have successfully opened an insuperable gulf between material success in writing and artistic success. Reardon's psychologically penetrating novels just aren't in demand. Therefore, there emerges quite an interesting conceptual shift within the nascent hegemony of the quarter-educated as established by their purchasing power: what was once considered healthy artistic integrity has transmuted into a peculiar kind of petit bourgeois hubris, if, in the new paradigm, the writer is more an artisan than an artist. Therefore, Reardon's artistically-compromised and padded three-volume novel, written with no other end in mind than to pander to the vulgar reader, nonetheless achieves only modest success because, the fact that it is indistinguishable from countless other similar works glutting the market aside, his novel is infected from his irrepressible integrity, and thus his novel becomes a strange sort of counterfeit, a psychological narrative masquerading as a popular novel. Reardon thus becomes a sort of Coriolanus among writers.

Milvain, on the other hand, is a sort of Henry Ford among writers; he reveals his particular genius when offering advice to his sister Maud about how to write religious works for juveniles: "I tell you, writing is a business. Get together half-a-dozen fair specimens of the Sunday school prize; study them; discover the essential points of such a composition; hit upon new attractions; then go to work methodically, so many pages a day" (13). In other words, Jasper has managed to streamline and to mechanize the writing process. He studies previous works, abstracts formulae from them, isolates the elements of these formulae, and then deploys and rearranges these elements to give his own writing a patina of originality. By treating writing as an exercise in manipulating formulae, Jasper exchanges "authenticity" (whatever that word means anymore) for the convenience and efficiency of not having to grapple with his own potentially mutable and recalcitrant genius. Jasper did not invent writing, just as Ford did not invent the automobile. But like Ford did with automobile manufacture, Milvain discovers those aspects of writing that lend themselves to mechanical reproduction. Thus he is able to capitalize on his time and effort, and effectively becomes the very machine Reardon believes himself to be but never actually becomes because of his lingering notions of artistic integrity (352).

Also of interest is the fact that Albert Yule is a sort of synthesis of Milvain and Reardon. Like Milvain, Yule attempts to streamline his own literary production by delegating some of the labor to his daughter Marian. However, like Reardon, Yule clings to the superannuated notion of the necessary individuality of writing: "[h]is failings, obvious enough, were the results of a strong and somewhat pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict with unpropitious circumstances" (38). In other words, Yule fails to recognize the obsolescence of the lone, learned genius within the realm of literary production. A market of vulgarians who demand occasional literary confections simply does not expect Works of individual genius. Moreover, even if they were in demand, works of individual genius are too ponderously inefficient to keep pace with the rate at which they are consumed. Therefore, Yule straddles the either/or proposition personified by Reardon and Milvain: One may preserve his artistic integrity and write "for the ages"--hence Yule, Biffen, and Reardon's fetishization of Shakespeare, Coleridge and authors of classical antiquity--and starve in the process, or one may write "for the moment" and actually turn a respectable profit.

The shadow of Charles Darwin indeed looms large over the events and characters of New Grub Street. The growth market brought about by the advent of the "quarter-educated" vulgar class, and their discretionary income coupled with their callow aesthetic sensibilities and truncated attention spans, represents a nascent economic, if not ecological niche, for certain social creatures to occupy. However, it's not simply a matter of being able to adapt one's skills to the tastes of these consumers. One must also be a prodigious enough writer to keep pace with an equally prodigious rate of consumption. Individuals like Milvain and Whelpdale are adequately adapted to this niche in that they satisfy the demands of this niche in terms of both content and output. Reardon panders to the vulgar taste only grudgingly and after long resistance and thereby cannot meet the production demands of this niche. Biffen absolutely refuses to pander at all. Alfred Yule does attempt to pander, but his mode of literary production is too inefficient to meet production demands, and he is also largely ignorant of vulgar literary taste. While more in touch with the vulgar reader than her father, Marian Yule is as inefficient in her literary production as her father. Therefore, each of the characters named above are equally maladaptive, albeit for various reasons, and thus their extinction by the novel's end strikes the reader as somehow inevitable. Whereas Milvain and Reardon's widow Amy are left to come together as the triumphant niche occupants and thus reproduce themselves in their offspring, should they decide to produce any.

I recently read New Grub Street, and I must say I was stunned by how much I enjoyed it. Gissing's prose and characterization hold up remarkably well. He's sort of an urban Hardy, though far more accessible to today's reader. I'd recommend this to any serious reader. Oh, and this novel is ripe for adaptation. A BBC miniseries would be great.

This is the be all end all of information as far as wines are concerned. We keep a copy in the shop at all times for new employees, and when they encounter a question on a certain varietal or terminology, it answers all the customers questions. Highly recommended.

If you love food and wine, this book is the perfect companion to the Food Lover's Companion. It's the ultimate dictionary for wine terminology.

This book was my favorite dealing with wine. It contains much of the same info as the Oxford Companion, but you can hold it in your hands and carry it about. It contains very useful information if you are learning about wine. Also has a great pronunciation guide for wine terms.

Whether you are new to wine or are a Cork-dork, this book, written in an easy to understand manner, is an excellent resource. The New Wine Lover's Companion is a must-have for any kitchen or wine library.

I purchased this book as a gift and my husband loved it. Yes, It is a dictionary so no pictures just words! It is a great addition to the "Complete Wine Course" by Kevin Zraly. Its small format is great to take along to diners or wine tasting party.
Great value for the price.

As a graduate student in Psychology I get to read and correct mountains of papers from intro-level classes. Now that I am about to get my degree and start teaching those classes, I realize that students need a book that shows them how to write a sentence. This is the book I have chosen for my Principles of Psychology classes. Harvey's concise style and recognition of the pompous style most young college students choose to write in is enlightening and entertaining. The small book is filled with great examples of what not to do alongside examples of how to fix the problem(s). Even though I have literally decades of technical and academic writing experience, the book has helped me to be more concise and to link my thoughts together in a more readable and efficient way. I highly recommend this book for students and especially for teachers. So what if you are not teaching English - if you require students to write, your students will produce better papers (that you have to read!) after using this book. It's required for my psych class!

This is a helpful book, but lacks some key aspects needed in college level English classes. Example: paraphrasing is not covered. Quotes are covered extensively though. Good for the price, handy, light to carry, but could use additions.

I'm a fan of The Elements of Style. I still have the students in my freshman composition class read it each year for its clear, concise guidelines to writing with style.

There are two striking flaws to that book though. First, the writing guidelines appear, too often, to my students as being arbitrary. In The Elements of Style, the logic behind good grammar rules is occasionally neglected in order to keep things brief. Each rule is just the truth because the book says so. Second, style is clearly a product of culture, and a result, the version of style Strunk and White offers fails to be as appropriate today as it once was.

The Nuts and Bolts of College writing amends these two errors. Almost everything in The Elements of Style is present here, too, but Harvey has provided a context sufficient for developing an understanding of these stylistic principles. He organizes the book according to values clearly desirable in writing: clarity, flow, gracefulness, etc. By discussing a principle such "using the active voice" within the context of clarity, Harvey effectively communicates why such an approach produces better writing. It's not just another rule to follow anymore. Additionally, Harvey's examples and his updates to stylistic norms make the book very timely.

In all, it's very handy tool in a writing classroom. I think it's the best of its kind currently available.

Anyone who wants a no nonsense approach for how to write (in general), needs this book. It teaches you how to write clearly and concisely and cuts through all the garbage. The author provides clears examples for what not to do and makes comparisons between good and bad writing. I highly recommend this book.

The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing goes over the fundamentals of good essay writing such as concision, clarity, flow, punctuation, and topic sentence for a paragraph and so on. It is an excellent reference book for college students and writers in general. The book however does not go into term or research paper writing.

Great product- I received it quickly and was able to utilize it for a class I was taking.

On Solid Ground is a comprehensive guide for teachers who would like to implement a reading workshop in their classrooms. I found this book to be a very valuable resource. The book also includes an appendix full of reproducible sheets that support instruction and organization.

I just "happened" upon this book a few years ago, and since I first opened the cover, I have been amazed at how it "talks" to the reader. I was drowning in the beginning of my Reading Recovery year, and this book helped me to put teaching reading into not only a global perspectative but into plain language. Since that time, I have re-read this book every summer before I head back into the "regular classroom" in hopes that I will be renewed and refreshed when beginning with my new students. I have referred many teachers to this book and would recommend it as a MUST have in the Professional library of every teacher. NO you dont need to borrow a copy from someone. You need to buy one(and I didnt get paid to say that!) LOL You need to be able to mark it up and refer back to it all year long. My copy is now tattered and torn but what a wealth of information Ms Taberski has given me.

I am a first year teacher working in an elementary urban education classroom. I found this book to be a happy marriage between theory and practice. It is clear you are reading a book by a veteran teacher, not simply someone who theorizes about education. There are so many aspects to this book that I found useful. Taberski's chapter on assessing student needs and organization of classroom space were most helpful. Read this book and if you have a chance check out Sharon taberski at one of her workshops - she is an inspiration to us all. Be sure to check out the appendices at the end of the book - great reproducibles there!

After teaching for 22 years as a special ed. teacher, I read Sharon's book. It changed how I teach forever. Using Sharon's ideas, I decreased the amount of talking I do, increased the amount of reading my students do and saw tremendous change in even my most disabled students. One 4th grade student made 4 years growth in the first six months after I began to use Sharon's strategies and returned to her regular class. All students made significant improvements. I highly recommend her book and her ideas to every teacher of young children. You won't be sorry.

The day this book arrived I read 6 chapters in 3 hours! This is a very inspirational book about leadership and success and is not just about your children. It would apply to anyone, any age, stay-at-home mom to CEO. I especially liked her personal stories, I felt like she was writing about me. I am living my dream and have never lost sight of my goals. After reading her book I feel like I have been more of a success than I had thought previously. This is a must read book for anyone. M. Craig - Successfull Internet Entrepreneur

Susan Collins has become a bedtime friend. This doesn't just feel like I'm reading a book, it feels like I know her. I look forward to spending time with her each night. She makes me feel her successes can also be mine.

My God, I must have stopped dreaming when I started to work. This book woke me up. Now I am remembering the things I told myself I'd do. And I will.!

I feel like I'm sitting right there talking to Susan. Her stories make me laugh, cry and dream. I've never been so deeply touched by a book!

This book puts many, until now, separate pieces together again‹training, management, leadership, parenting and personal growth. Making sense of them all.

Having students learn to learn is a goal identified by all teachers. John Creger's book guides the reader through a process that engages all students and through that engagement, students learn about themselves and their personal responsibilities. They learn how to learn.

From the quotes, to the text, this is a book teachers will use and share.

Mr. Creger is doing some very important work that really empowers teenagers to access and express their most authentic self. His book about the creed project can help others find ways to implement this program which should be done in every school in America. High Praise for the work and the book! A must read/implement for any High School English teachers, principals, other teachers and students.

Most kids seem to be taught only what will be asked on the local standardized test. It is rare when they are taught to actually think! Which is sad. John Creger wants to change that and not only encourage independent thought but also to get our children to ask themselves what they stand for. And imagine the self worth that students get when their peers tell them how much they have meant to them. I showed this to the chairman our our school board and she says that she is going to implement John's program in our school district. I hope she does. Kudos to John for this innovative teaching pattern.

by Gurupreet Khalsa, NBCT
Most of us don't spend much time analyzing our lives, examining wisdom, or articulating values, personal goals, or influences on our world view. The opportunity for high school students to spend a school year investigating the concept of wisdom and then to determine their stance in the world by analyzing and demonstrating how their views coalesce into a personal creed is one not to be missed. John Creger's book, The Personal Creed Project and a New Vision of Learning: Teaching the Universe of Meaning In & Beyond the Classroom, provides a rationale and a means for doing just that.
From the beginning of this book, I was hooked. Creger, a staunch fan of James Moffett, argues for personally rewarding learning. I'm a fan, too, of figuring out ways to make school meaningful for students and teachers in the face of "walls of measurement" inhibiting personal growth for the sake of "skills." Often, school is a fight between students yearning for freedom or purpose and systems bent on shaping them to fit a conforming model. Most classrooms ask students to leave their inner selves in their lockers.
Adolescents are all about figuring out who they are and how they fit into larger schemes of family, community, nation, world. School should be a place to explore those relationships, but sadly, teens are often left floundering on their own, stuck with popular media's ideas about the world. Thus, many students leave school with weak personal foundations on which to build. Creger claims that this lack is going to contribute to the downfall of democracy, because when people don't know what they stand for, and then stand for it, freedom suffers. With very good support, he works a theory of learning tied to the moral advancement and personal unfolding of society's members, which is the only way that a nation built on freedom can sustain. He proposes methods by which education can become "growth-centered" rather than "skills-centered."
Creger's book is as much about the need for an entirely different philosophical approach to education as it is a description of an ennobling project. He is right in thinking, along with Moffett, whom he quotes extensively, that a new perception of learning is necessary, far beyond the partial or piecemeal, reactionary or progressive fixes we have repeatedly implemented.
Historically there has been a dangerous waffling in educational reform, a tendency to retreat to the security of a policy-bound system fraught with rules and measurements, rather than embarking on an uncharted journey into the hearts and souls of America's teens with a view towards awakening their inner spirits. Creger has provided one way for teachers to begin such a journey. The constantly swinging pendulum of school "reform," he claims, can be steadied and exchanged for true forward movement by incorporating what he calls "two-legged" learning: learning that embraces both academic and personal goals, or, as he labels it, cultural and conscious learning.
There is much to love in this book. Many teachers have used quotes as journal starters; Creger takes the idea farther with "Thought Logs," tying them into wisdom through the ages. I loved the careful attention to students' (and teachers') personal growth - the ultimate aim of education. I loved the idea of classroom "meditating," establishing an ambience of calm consideration of ideas shaping us as human beings. I like Big Questions, overarching themes. I liked the "triumvirate" nature of learning - facts, meanings, values; material, mental, spiritual; beauty, truth, goodness, that Creger explores.
If I have any arguments with Creger's book, it is that it sometimes sounds a bit "preachy" - not surprising for someone so passionate about the need to make substantive changes in the ways schools address learning. Frequent italicized words make some passages sound like they are coming from the pulpit.
The missionary spirit of the book creates the excitement of a "movement" - an important factor in change. Yet with over-use of such a project, the deep impact would of course be diluted. Not that it's wrong to keep reflecting on our personal values and meanings, but, once institutionalized (as anything, which is what's wrong with most organized education), such a project loses its epiphanal nature and could become yet another scripted program in the wrong hands. What is most important is the underlying philosophy of meaningful education. It is clear that Creger has thought long and deeply about the nature of a satisfying education for the new millennium. This is a book to help us on our way.

Identity-integrity=self worth.These are a few of the words that describe the turmoil of the adolescent mind. The Personal Creed Project is the most practical way that i have encountered that encourages each teenager to embark on a path of self examination and articulation to resolve these personal conflicts.Too many high schoolers and college students look upon their educational experience as an arid wasteland as four years forced upon them by a system that ignores their personal needs and concerns. Rather than requiring students to study abstract "subjects" the Personal Creed Project makes each individual the "subject" and rewards even those who are failing academically with a sense of identity, integrity and self worth.
Isn't that is what education is all about?
Teacher Bob