From the author and illustrator of Our Class is a Family, this touching picture book expresses a teacher's sentiments and well wishes on the last day of school. Serving as a follow up to the letter in A Letter From Your Teacher: On the First Day of School, it's a read aloud for teachers to bid a special farewell to their students at the end of the school year. Through a letter written from the teacher's point of view, the class is invited to reflect back on memories made, connections formed, and challenges met. The letter expresses how proud their teacher is of them, and how much they will be missed. Students will also leave on that last day knowing that their teacher is cheering them on for all of the exciting things to come in the future. There is a blank space on the last page for teachers to sign their own name, so that students know that the letter in the book is coming straight from them. With its sincere message and inclusive illustrations, A Letter From Your Teacher: On the Last Day of School is a valuable addition to any elementary school teacher's classroom library.

Inspirational reflections on the art of teaching from the acclaimed essayist and teacher who inspired Dead Poets Society. Sam Pickering has been teaching for more than forty years. As a young English teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy in Tennessee, his musings on literature and his maverick pedagogy touched a student named Tommy Schulman, who later wrote the screenplay for Dead Poets Society. Pickering went on to teach at Dartmouth and the University of Connecticut, where he has been for twenty-five years. His acclaimed essays have established him as a nimble thinker with a unique way of enlightening us through the quotidian. Letters to a Teacher is a welcome reminder that teaching is a joy and an art. In ten letters addressed to teachers of all types, Pickering shares compelling, funny, always illuminating anecdotes from a lifetime in the classrooms of schools and universities. His observations touch on topics such as competition, curiosity, enthusiasm, and truth, and are leavened throughout with stories—whether from the family breakfast table, his revelatory nature walks, or his time teaching in Australia and Syria. More than a how-to guide, Letters to a Teacher is an invitation into the hearts and minds of an extraordinary educator and his students, and an irresistible call to reflection for the teacher who knows he or she must be compassionate, optimistic, respectful, firm, and above all, dynamic. “Perhaps the most poetic–even elegiac writing about education published in the past year.” —Library Journal

The author shares a series of personal reflections, anecdotes, wisdom, and guidance in his letters to Francesca, a first-year teacher in a Boston elementary school, as he attempts to help her deal with the challenges she encounters.

This funny, touching picture book celebrates the difference a good teacher can make. Written as a thank-you note to a special teacher from the student who never forgot her, this moving story makes a great classroom read-aloud, and a perfect back-to-school gift for students and teachers! Dear Teacher, Whenever I had something to tell you, I tugged on your shirt and whispered in your ear. This time I’m writing a letter. So begins this heartfelt picture book about a girl who prefers running and jumping to listening and learning—and the teacher who gently inspires her. From stomping through creeks on a field trip to pretending to choke when called upon to read aloud, this book’s young heroine would be a challenge to any teacher. But this teacher isn’t just any teacher. By listening carefully and knowing just the right thing to say, she quickly learns that the girl’s unruly behavior is due to her struggles with reading. And at the very end, we learn what this former student is now: a teacher herself. From award winning author Deborah Hopkinson and acclaimed illustrator Nancy Carpenter, this picture book is made to be treasured by both those who teach and those who learn.

Ten essays on literature, competition, curiosity, enthusiasm, and truth from the teacher who inspired "The Dead Poet's Society" reveal the joys of teaching and the power of innovation over stale formalism.

Joy's questions and Jim's responses evoke in us an appreciation for what it means to do the work called teaching with the "living intensity of soul." May such soulful teaching flourish among us: here is a book that can help it be so. - Parker Palmer and Sam Intrator Every new teacher needs a mentor, someone smart, experienced, compassionate, and reliable to give advice, share strategies, and lend a supportive ear. What if every new English teacher could have one the nation's most-recognized master teachers as their mentor? Now they can. Letters to a New Teacher is the chance of a professional lifetime, an opportunity to read the letters and emails Jim Burke exchanged with novice teacher Joy Krajicek - letters in which Jim opens his practice, his mind, and his heart to guide Joy through her first year in the classroom. Jim fields the whole gamut of questions - from typical classroom-management matters to challenging instructional situations to sensitive topics like the boundaries of student-teacher relationships. His answers open the classroom experience up for novices to understand how to organize their space and time, how to plan instruction yet maintain flexibility, how to communicate effectively with the two-hundred personalities they encounter each day, and how to maintain professionalism under pressure. As gentle, humorous, and supportive as they are practical, Jim's responses to Joy's questions are immediately useful and are presented in chronological order. From August through June, you'll watch as her questions become increasingly complex and see how Jim's answers build upon one another to create a considered, consistent, and disciplined way of thinking about the teaching of English. Start a your career the right way. Read Letters to a New Teacher and put the thoughts of a master mentor to work in your classroom. Or give Letters to a New Teacher to a novice so they can discover a wellspring of ideas, a source for emotional sustenance, and a buoy for their spirits during difficult moments.

Upon its original publication in Portuguese Teachers as Cultural Workers became an instant success. Translated and published in English and now reissued in paperback with new essays from leading education scholars

"This hilarious collection of letters from Michael to his new teacher comes packed with alligators, pirates and rocket ships, and much, much more. Can Michael's imagination save him from the first day of school?"--Page 4 of cover.

A real professor and her student forge a friendship through correspondence as they discuss love, art, life, cancer, and death. In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer. Over the next four years—in which Ritvo’s illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed—the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, the afterlife as an Amtrak quiet car, good soup: in Ruhl and Ritvo’s exchanges, all ideas are fair, nourishing game, shared and debated in a spirit of generosity and love. “We’ll always know one another forever, however long ever is,” Ritvo writes. “And that’s all I want—is to know you forever.” Studded with poems and songs, Letters from Max is a deeply moving portrait of a friendship, and a shimmering exploration of love, art, mortality, and the afterlife. Praise for Letters from Max “An unusual, beautiful book about nothing less than the necessity of art in our lives. Two big-hearted, big-brained writers have allowed us to eavesdrop on their friendship: jokes and heartbreaks, admiration, hard work, tender work.” —Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway “Immediate comparisons will be made to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Artist . . . this book is a nuanced look at the evolution of an incredible talent facing mortality and the mentor, never condescending, who recognizes his gift. Their infectious letters shine with a love of words and beauty.” —The Observer “Deeply moving, often heartbreaking. . . . A captivating celebration of life and love.” —Kirkus Reviews “Moving and erudite . . . devastating and lyrical . . . Ruhl draws a comparison between their correspondence and that between poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, and indeed, with the depth and intelligence displayed, one feels in the presence of literary titans.” —Publishers Weekly

Letters to Lisa is a practical book intended to stimulate Christian teachers to reflect on their practice as teachers. Its purpose is to help teachers see that everyday classroom practice is determined by our fundamental beliefs about education and about the Christian life, and to suggest ways of teaching in the biblical way.