Burke Books

As always, Jim Burke has produced a concise and user-friendly resource for teachers. Each chapter's key idea is followed with guiding principles for immediate implementation or for a comparative review of teaching practices. His Tech Notes remind us of our responsibility to integrate 21st Century literacy skills, and his "Keep in Mind" additions give us reason to reflect. Don't overlook the Works Cited page either as it highlights the best of current research and practice.

This book would be an outstanding addition to any new teacher mentoring program.

The book Everday Instruction is a short concisce book that contains information that is necessary for every teacher. I liked this book because it is specific and I can use it as a reference when needed. It covers a variety of topics and helps to provide effective instruction in various setings and using a variety of methods. I highly reccommend this book for all teachers to have in thier library and refer to often.

A must for the the serious cardio path! Heartbreakingly beautiful images, rigorous scholarship, and concise text come together to explicate even the most obscure cases.

A must for the the serious cardio path! Heartbreakingly beautiful images, rigorous scholarship, and concise text come together to explicate even the most obscure cases.

This book was amazing. The authors of this book are purely ingenious. It is the quintessential book on the understanding countertransference. I cannot wait until these authors release another book.

If you've ever grappled with what's going on - in the therapy room or in real life - this book is for you. Tansey and Burke take on the very complex phenomenon of "projective identification" and make it clear, well as clear as it can be, what happens and why. Since we're all victims of the projections of others, you can hardly learn too much about it. It's very important to know the differences between empathy, countertransference and p.i. and really good to be able to negotiate among them. I'm a professional coach, so I do get involved with people in depth, and this book has helped me tremendously to deal with various forms of interpersonal press and remain effective as a helper. It's grounded in actual theapeutic practice and is invaluable.

Feldman has made art criticism easy to understand for the student and non-student layperson alike. Throughout the book he uses clear examples from established art works to ilustrate the ideas used in identifying what is art through the use of one's perception. The book is clearly divided into logically linked chapters. The last half of the book can be used as an outline to clearly write one's own criticism, and, with a little work, construct a criticism comparing any two artworks from any media. This is a "must have" book for any graphic or performing artist.

Feldman has made art criticism easy to understand for the student and non-student layperson alike. Throughout the book he uses clear examples from established art works to ilustrate the ideas used in identifying what is art through the use of one's perception. The book is clearly divided into logically linked chapters. The last half of the book can be used as an outline to clearly write one's own criticism, and, with a little work, construct a criticism comparing any two artworks from any media. This is a "must have" book for any graphic or performing artist.

A must have for every oncology nurse. Complete information at your fingertips! Every Oncology unit should have one in the med room too.

Burke, Jim (2005). Accessing School: Teaching Struggling Readers to Achieve Academic and Personal Success. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

In my commute to and from school, I've seen a bumper sticker that says: "If you can read this, thank a teacher." In many cases, the adage on the bumper sticker is true, but some children advance to high school with the ability to read little besides that bumper sticker. In his book Accessing School: Teaching Struggling Readers to Achieve Academic and Personal Success, author Jim Burke outlines a plan for reaching high schoolers who have not mastered the basics of literacy.

For high school or even middle grades classrooms, this book provides a solid framework of ideas for reaching and teaching students who lack strong reading skills. In six chapters, Burke spotlights a remedial reading class, called ACCESS, which he pioneered in the Burlingame public schools in California. Burke first provides an overview of the ACCESS class, explaining how and why the class targets low-performing high school students and attempts to fast-forward their learning. In his description, Burke provides ample research to back up his ideas for the ACCESS class. Burke then carefully lays out the set up of the class and provides numerous ideas for engendering academic success in the subsequent chapters. Even though I teach elementary students, I could relate to Burke's ideas about how reading buddies stimulate struggling readers. As the book concludes, Burke looks at how to measure student success and delves into the roles that teachers play in the ACCESS class.

Throughout the narrative, Burke writes with an easy, friendly tone and provides real examples from his teaching career and his own life as a father. Although the book mainly seems geared toward administrators looking to implement a new kind of remedial reading class, many of Burke's ideas are useful for classroom teachers who work with struggling readers on any level.

Reviewed by Katie Wester Neal, who recently completed a Master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and currently, teaches fifth grade in Sterling, Virginia. Her academic interests include gender differences in education and helping struggling readers improve.

Education Review

This book offers great adventure. The technical details are awesome! I hope there's a sequel.

Adorno and the Need in Thinking: New Critical Essays is an exploration of the contemporary issues that intellectual and philosopher Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) confronted during the course of his work and writings. Presenting an anthology of essays written by learned contributors, Adorno and the Need in Thinking covers topics ranging from "From the Actual to the Possible: Non-identity Thinking" to "Politics beyond Speech: Communication and the Non-identical", and "On Adorno's Aesthetics of the Ugly". Also presented for the first time in English is one of Adorno's early essays, "Theses on the Language of the Philosopher". The advanced critical discourse is best suited for college or graduate-level philosophy students and practitioners, in this meticulous and thoughtful collection. "Disparaging the seductiveness of classical beauty, modern art depicts human alienation and indicts contemporary society. Yet Adorno attests that, through its autonomy and radical truth content, such art witnesses to a world that can and should be other than it is. 'Works of art, even literary ones, point to a practice from which they abstain: the creation of a just life.'" Highly recommended for philosophy and college library shelves.

This is the true inside information on the nomination of Ike for President. Along the way learn about New York and the New York Young Republicans. A well written story. I feal like I know the man. May he rest in peace.

It's always embarrassing to be wrong in public, but if one is going to learn, it is better to confront one's mistakes than to ignore them as if they had never happened. When I wrote my short review of Vincent Smith's AKBAR THE GREAT MOGUL, I was overly impressed by its Oxford imprimatur, the author's scholarly credentials, and the book's venerable age (1917). It is not surprising that I gained the impression that Akbar had embraced Parsiism, for after asserting that the Emperor had rejected Islam, Smith provides what seems like unmistakable evidence for this conversion: Akbar worshipped fire and the sun. What seems less easy to understand or explain is how I could have overlooked the passages in Smith's book which imply that Akbar, having rejected Islam, began to persecute Muslims. If this is correct, it would greatly tarnish his well-known reputation for toleration.

Trying to decide if I should buy S.M. Burke's AKBAR, THE GREATEST MOGUL from Amazon, I examined a library copy of the more recently-penned biography alongside of Smith's work. And to my relief (for I have had a special affection for Akbar since I read about him years ago in Bamber Gascoigne's THE GREAT MOGHULS), I found in it an excellent refutation of Smith's charges of religious intolerance. To quote Burke: "To have punished anyone solely on the score of religion was alien to Akbar's entire outlook. The seniormost ladies of his own household-- his mother, his aunt Golbadan and his wife Salima-- were all pious Muslims and he always paid them the greatest respect. He arranged for Golbadan and Salima to gain merit by performing the hajj [pilgimmage to Mecca]. If being a fervent Muslim was a crime in Akbar's eyes, as Badauni would have us believe, how did Badauni, the self-confessed zealot, manage to survive at court, so close to Akbar, till the very end of the Emperor's life?" (p. 128). To which I might add, concerning the charge that he banned Arabic letters, that if he had done so he could not have expected to see his own name anywhere, as it is in fact part of the Muslim takbir, the first sentence pronounced daily in the muezzin's call to prayer, "Allahu akbar" or "God is great", and nothing could have been more Arabic.

This still leaves open the question of what religion Akbar ultimately embraced. His "Din-I-Ilahi" was a customized religion wich undoubtedly contained a large measure of self-glorification, for no one denies that Akbar was vain. But there was good reason for him to consider himself to still be a Muslim even after he established it. It so happens that there was a brand of Islam which was popular in Akbar's time and very different from the bigoted Islam of the ulema whose bickering so irritated Akbar. This was Sufisim, a type of mysticism which sought union with the divine through ecstatic attainment of union with God, usually brought about through contemplation and an austere way of life. Sufis were tolerant, believing that there is a core of truth in every religion: like the Persian poet Rumi and the Christan Gnostics, they would have agreed that God is to be found not in a synagogue, church or mosque but in one's own heart. Burke provides much evidence of Akbar's attraction to Sufism. Indeed, Akbar himself experienced mysterious moments of "seizure", in which he became detached from everything that was going on around him and unable to participate in it, as though he were possessed. In one instance, he was engaged in a form of hunting which he greatly enjoyed, in which beaters drove animals into a confined space where they could be slaughtered-- depictions of this form of hunting, as well as Akbar hunting on horseback with cheetahs, still exist in Moghul miniatures. On this particular occasion, after his "seizure", Akbar seemed to lose all his thirst for blood and ordered that the animals be released unharmed. He seemed elated and himself interpreted such "seizures", which recurred on other occasions, as moments of complete union with God such as the Sufis sought.

Smith attempted to explain these episodes by hypothesizing that Akbar was an epileptic, but why then would he have interpreted the seizures in a positive light? As Burke says, it is more plausible to conclude that they were exactly what Akbar thought they were, and it does not matter whether or not WE believe that he had attained union with God on these occasions, only that Akbar, being of a mystical bent, genuinely believed that he had. Interestingly, Akbar may have been afflicted with another disorder, although the possibility has never been raised by any author to my knowledge, including Burke. This is dyslexia. It is well known that Akbar was illiterate. Smith attributes this to youthful idleness, and Burke to "an unsettled childhood and natural aversion to being taught." (p. 31). But given the undeniable intellectual capacity and love of learning that he displayed as an adult, it seems more likely that he had a reading disorder which could have been easily overcome in today's world but which was not even recognized in his own era or Smith's, for that matter.

Smith's assertion that Akbar was "free from a love of cruelty for its own sake," is supported by the edict, cited by both Smith and Burke, which he promulgated against involuntary suttee. As Burke says, "On one occasion Akbar heard that a Rajput princess did not wish to commit suttee after the death of her husband but her son and other relatives were resolved to force her to burn herself. He immediately mounted his horse, speeded to the spot, and prevented the tragedy." (p. 141) It is also supported by the shock Akbar felt at the hideous torture-death inflicted on a man by his son Salim (the future Jahangir) when he was in his cups (p. 208). But there is one question on which debate still rages as it does about his religion. Smith says that "Akbar's whole policy was directed principally toward the acquisition of power and riches, and that "improvement of the condition of the people was quite a secondary consideration." Burke takes strong exception, using numerous examples to demonstrate the falsity of this assertion. For one thing, if Akbar's system of administration was not beneficial to his subjects, why did the British themselves model theirs upon it? (p. 215) Secondly, Akbar expressed his concern for the poor and downtrodden in innumerable ways. He made himself accessible to everyone, even the lowliest of his subjects. He distributed alms in vast amounts and encouraged his nobles to do the same. He built free hospitals and schools, serais (the equivalent of today's hostel) for poor travelers, and constructed wells and dams to help the peasants (pp. 145-221). When one of his ministers pleaded that, because of old age and failing health, he wished to retire and spend his days in "remembering God", Akbar refused to let him go and said that "No worship of God is equal to the soothing of the oppressed."

It seems that Burke is right when he says of Smith and some of his contemporaries who felt the same about Akbar, "they were reluctant to permit any period of Indian history to outshine the British inerregnum in benevolence and enlightenment." (p. 216) Another Englishman felt differently. In an address to the Pakistani parliament, the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, said, "When the East India Company received its charter nearly four centuries ago, your great Emperor Akbar was on the throne, whose reign was marked by perhaps as great a degree of political and religious tolerance, as has been known before or since. It was an example by which, I honestly believe, generations of our public men and administrators have been influenced." (p. 221)