Drawing from a wealth of research and experience, this book shows educators how to use the transformative power of professional learning in community to raise the professional stature of educators. The authors, experts in their field, provide clear steps and real-school examples with a focus on collaborative adult learning for student gains, community respect, professional satisfaction, and collegial support. They examine pitfalls and distractions, and show clear images of what empowered Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) look like for teachers, administrators, and leaders at the school and district level. The authors also provide practical tools for advancing and measuring progress. This resource will help educators move from a climate of sanctions to one of mutual trust and support informed by a commitment to students and a dedication to working and learning together. Book features: A rubric for PLCs to measure their progress on a continuum. Organizational structures, human resources, and protocols required to empower PLCs. Stories from schools of PLC breakthroughs and best PLC practices. An “Innovation Configuration Map,” or master plan, for moving a PLC to progressively higher levels. A framework for developing a teaching profession that is more self-regulating and more highly valued by society.

Reclaiming the Teaching Profession gives educators (especially teachers and future teachers) and their allies a clear overview of the massive effort to dismantle public education in the United States, which includes a direct attack on teachers. The book details, and provides a systematic critique of, the shaky assumptions at the foundation of the market-based reform initiatives that dominate the contemporary education scene. It names and exposes the motives and methods of the powerful philanthropists, politicians, business moguls, and education entrepreneurs who are behind the reform movement. It provides counter narratives that public school advocates can use to talk back to those who would destroy the teaching profession and public education. It includes examples of successful acts of resistance and identifies resources for challenging reformers’ taken for granted primacy in the education debate. It concludes with strategies educators can use to “speak truth to power,” reclaim their professional status, and reshape the education landscape in ways that serve all of America’s children and preserve our democracy.

"1. The book offers teacher educators and stakeholders an overview of accountability in the era of education reform and embraces teacher education accountability as a lever for reconstructing its targets, purposes, and consequences in keeping with the larger democratic project. 2. The book introduces a framework, eight dimensions of accountability, for interrogating dimensions of accountability policy and practice by revealing an accountability initiative's operation but also exposing underlying values and principles, theory of change, and relationship to larger political and policy agendas. 3. Using the authors' framework, eight dimensions of accountability, the book deconstructs four of the most visible education reform initiatives relevant to teacher educators and education stakeholders. The book proposes a rallying call to teacher educators and stakeholders to reclaim accountability using a new approach: democratic accountability in teacher education" --

Drawing from a wealth of research and experience, this book shows educators how to use the transformative power of professional learning in community to raise the professional stature of educators. The authors, experts in their field, provide clear steps and real-school examples with a focus on collaborative adult learning for student gains, community respect, professional satisfaction, and collegial support. They examine pitfalls and distractions, and show clear images of what empowered Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) look like for teachers, administrators, and leaders at the school and district level. The authors also provide practical tools for advancing and measuring progress. This resource will help educators move from a climate of sanctions to one of mutual trust and support committed to students and dedicated to working and learning together.

Are you overwhelmed by unruly students, difficult parents, and never-ending classroom distractions? Are you tired of scavenging and pleading for basic school supplies? Do you wonder if anyone notices or cares how much effort you put into teaching every day? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this book is for you. When Teaching Gets Tough offers practical strategies you can use to make things better right away. Veteran educator Allen Mendler organizes the discussion around four core challenges: * Managing difficult students * Working with unappreciative and irritating adults * Making the best of an imperfect environment * Finding time to take top-notch care of yourself When Teaching Gets Tough is there when you need help to reclaim and sustain your energy and enthusiasm for teaching. Written with a deep understanding of the issues that teachers face every day, the book also includes sections for administrators who want to help teachers stay at the top of their game. Allen Mendler is an educator and school psychologist and the author of Connecting with Students and co-author of Discipline with Dignity, 3rd edition .

Fact: Children are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever. br> Faced with this epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioral problems, teachers are asking themselves what went wrong. Why have we lost our students? More importantly: how can we get them back? Hannah Beach, a celebrated educator and specialist in the field of emotional health, and Tamara Neufeld Strijack, Clinical Counsellor and Academic Dean of the acclaimed Neufeld Institute, provide a thoughtful guide to restoring the student-teacher relationship and creating the conditions for change. Reclaiming Our Students arms teachers with strategies to reassert their leadership role and build emotional safety in the classroom. The result: students can get back to learning, and teachers can get back to teaching You'll learn: - How to build, feed, and protect the student-teacher relationship - Why children are anxious or bossy, aggressive or checked out, and what teachers can do to address these behavioral issues at their root - How you can help students and classes shift their identity as the "problem student" or "bad class" - Experiential activities for students of all ages that preserve and restore emotional health and well-being Plus, you'll find special considerations and information for parents, principals, counsellors, and home educators for building safety and support in the learning environment. Combining Hannah's groundbreaking experiential approach to creating emotional health and community in the classroom with the Neufeld Institute's insightful approach to building relationships and making sense of children, Reclaiming Our Students is required reading for teachers who not only want to understand and overcome daily challenges, but also re-connect to their calling as educators.

Reclaiming Our Food tells the stories of people across the United States who are finding new ways to grow, process, and distribute food for their own communities. Discover how abandoned urban lots have been turned into productive organic farms, how a family-run sustainable fish farm can stay local and be profitable, and how engaged communities are bringing fresh produce into school cafeterias. Through photographic essays and interviews with innovative food leaders, you’ll be inspired to get involved and help cultivate your own local food economy.

Good behaviour is the beginning of great learning. All children deserve classrooms that are calm, safe spaces where everyone is treated with dignity. Creating that space is one of the most important things a teacher needs to be able to do. But all too often teachers begin their careers with the bare minimum of training – or worse, none. How students behave, socially and academically, dictates whether or not they will succeed or struggle in school. Every child comes to the classroom with different skills, habits, values and expectations of what to do. There’s no point just telling a child to behave; behaviour must be taught. Behaviour is a curriculum. This simple truth is the beginning of creating a classroom culture where everyone flourishes, pupils and staff. Running the Room is the teacher’s guide to behaviour. Practical, evidence informed, and based on the expertise of great teachers from around the world, it addresses the things teachers really need to know to build the classrooms children need. Bursting with strategies, tips and solid advice, it brings together the best of what we know and saves teachers, new or old, from reinventing the wheels of the classroom. It’s the book teachers have been waiting for.

Where exactly did personalized learning go so wrong? For teacher and consultant Paul France, at first technology-powered personalized learning seemed like a panacea. But after three years spent at a personalized learning start-up and network of microschools, he soon realized that such corporate-driven individualized learning initiatives do more harm than good, especially among our most vulnerable students. The far-superior alternative? A human-centered pedagogy that prioritizes children over technology. First, let’s be clear: Reclaiming Personalized Learning is not yet-another ed tech book. Instead it’s a user’s guide to restoring equity and humanity to our classrooms and schools through personalization. One part polemical, eleven parts practical, the book describes how to: Shape whole-class instruction, leverage small-group interactions, and nurture a student’s inner-dialogue Cultivate awareness within and among students, and build autonomy and authority Design curriculum with a flexible frame and where exactly the standards fit Humanize assessment and instruction, including the place of responsive teaching Create a sense of belonging, humanize technology integration, and effect socially just teaching and learning—all central issues in equity The truth is this: there’s no one framework, there’s no one tool that makes learning personalized–what personalized learning companies with a vested interest in profits might tempt you to believe. It’s people who personalize learning, and people not technology must be at the center of education. The time is now for all of us teachers to reclaim personalized learning, and this all-important book is our very best resource for getting started. "This is a compelling and critically important book for our time. With rich stories of teaching and learning Paul France considers ways to create the most positive learning experiences possible." - JO BOALER, Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, Stanford Graduate School of Education "This brilliant book is a major contribution to the re-imagination of learning and teaching for the twenty-first century and should be essential reading for new and experienced teachers alike." - TONY WAGNER, Senior Research Fellow, Learning Policy Institute "In these troubled times, this book is more than a breath of fresh air, it is a call to action. Paul gives us an accessible and sophisticated book that explains how and why we should celebrate the humanity of every single student." - JIM KNIGHT, Senior Partner of the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) and Author of The Impact Cycle

This genre-busting book captures the heart, mind, and hope of education like no other. Through a series of interwoven stories, award-winning educator and principal Brad Gustafson reminds us of what we've known all along: Children are more than numbers, and we are called to teach and reach them accordingly.