Drawing on more than twenty years of teaching experience, Christina Bieber Lake helps you rediscover your passion for the teaching profession. Creatively structured around the typical rhythms of the academic calendar, this book offers refreshing and practiced advice about how to flourish in the midst of the teaching life.

Far from offering a thin patina of "niceness" spread over standard educational philosophy, Steven Loomis and Paul Spears set forth a vigorous Christian philosophy of education that seeks to transform the practice of education. Beginning with a robust view of human nature, they build a case for a decidedly Christian view of education that still rightfully takes its place within the marketplace of public education.

This book provides perspectives and insights across the educational system for how we might move toward living out this wish in all schools. The chapters provide perspectives on fundamental questions that have been guiding recent research on wellbeing in schools: How do school communities flourish together? How does supporting educator wellbeing connect to teaching, learning, leading in schools? What characteristics, qualities and strategies support the wellbeing of the whole school community? This book is unique in that it answers these questions from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators in K-12 schools, as well as from university and the wider community. Importantly, these chapters provide a repertoire of varied answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How can we leverage what works well to grow more, to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute? These chapters serve as examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts ways they can grow wellbeing through a focused attention on building appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and leading in all schools.

Winner of the Mathematics Association of America's 2021 Euler Book Prize, this is an inclusive vision of mathematics—its beauty, its humanity, and its power to build virtues that help us all flourish“This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart.”—James Tanton, Global Math Project"A good book is an entertaining read. A great book holds up a mirror that allows us to more clearly see ourselves and the world we live in. Francis Su’s Mathematics for Human Flourishing is both a good book and a great book."—MAA Reviews For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity’s most beautiful ideas.In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award‑winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires—such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love—and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother’s, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher’s letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can—and must—be open to all.

Streamline literacy instruction while increasing student achievement Dave R. Stuart Jr.’s work is centered on a simple belief: all students and teachers can flourish. Yet that seemingly simple goal can feel unattainable when teachers are expected to teach core content within the disciplines and improve literacy in their classrooms. How can teachers and students flourish under so much pressure? Stuart’s advice: Take a deep breath and refocus on six known best practices— establish and strengthen key beliefs, then build knowledge and increase reading, writing, speaking and listening, and argumentation in every content area, every day. These 6 Things is all about streamlining your practice so that you’re teaching smarter, not harder, and kids are learning, doing, and flourishing in ELA and content-area classrooms. In this essential new resource, teachers will receive Proven, classroom-tested advice delivered in an approachable, teacher-to-teacher style that builds confidence Practical strategies for streamlining instruction in order to focus on key beliefs and literacy-building activities Solutions and suggestions for the most common teacher and student "hang-ups" Numerous recommendations for deeper reading on key topics In addition to teaching English and world history for more than a decade, Stuart is well-known for his blog DaveStuartJr.com, which has over 35,000 visitors each month. This popular resource has been a beacon of light for more than 10,000 subscribers who refuse to freak out about the everyday challenges of teaching in a high-stakes era. He presents professional development workshops and institutes for schools around the United States and offers a number of online learning tools and experiences on his website.

Teachers today are more stressed than ever. It is crucial that teachers develop the tools necessary to keep from falling prey to the potentially destructive effects of stress and burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal: Guarding Against Stress and Burnout offers the antidote by providing the knowledge, skills and practices that will keep teachers from surrendering to burnout. Cultivating Teacher Renewal is evidence-based presenting an extensive review of the abundant research on stress and burnout specifically applying it to the teaching profession. This book adopts a comprehensive approach spanning the fields of education, the social sciences, and the neurosciences. The array of strategiesoffered will help teachers become stress hardy to stay in a renewal cycle by, building up defenses against burnout, successfully negotiating the emotional terrain of teaching, instilling new ways of thinking and behaving to preserve well-being, and limiting stress exposure by exercising healthier choices. This book will also help you to maintain a work-life balance and develop practices to sustain resilience and optimism.

Flourishing in the First Five Years: Connecting Mind, Brain, and Education Research to the Development of Young Children will take you on a fascinating journey of discovery about what you can do to experience the thrill of helping all young children realize more of their unique potential. Packed with practical strategies and inspiring research about how learning changes the brain this book will empower you with ideas you can apply right away that can positively change children s lives forever."

In his latest book, leading educator and author Kevin Kumashiro takes aim at the current debate on educational reform, paying particular attention to the ways that scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions, and teacher educators masks the real, systemic problems. He convincingly demonstrates how current trends, like market-based reforms and fast-track teacher certification programs are creating overwhelming obstacles to achieving an equitable education for all children. Bad Teacher! highlights the common ways that both the public and influential leaders think about the problems and solutions for public education, and suggests ways to help us see the bigger picture and reframe the debate. Compelling, accessible, and grounded in current initiatives and debates, this book is important reading for a diverse audience of policymakers, school leaders, parents, and everyone who cares about education. Kevin K. Kumashiro is director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education and president-elect (2010–2012) of the National Association for Multicultural Education. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America's Schools. Praise for Bad Teacher! “This book could be a springboard for teachers . . . to become more actively involved in advocating for a paradigm shift in our concept of education.” —Grace Lee Boggs, The Boggs Center “Kumashiro is a remarkable sleuth who … shows us how the deck is stacked, how the game is played, who gains, and who loses. Join him in a clarion call to build a Movement to reclaim public education.” —Robert P. Moses, The Algebra Project “Courageous, blunt, and hopeful, Bad Teacher! offers a democratic vision for true educational change.” —Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts at Amherst “Anyone seeking to understand why so many of the reforms we have pursued have failed will benefit from reading this book.” —Pedro A. Noguera, New York University “Kumashiro explains why we should think differently about the prescriptions that are now taken for granted—and wrong.” —Diane Ravitch, New York University, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education “Kumashiro expertly examines the many forces working against public education, and how and why these forces are at play.” —Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association “Bad Teacher! is oh-so-smart and timely. . . . This book attacks head-on the ragged patchwork of ‘school reform’ that has left us without even the vocabulary to frame what’s gone wrong.” —Patricia J. Williams, Columbia Law School 2012 Must-read book about K–12 education in the U.S., Christian Science Monitor

This astonishing book invites you into a conversation between a teacher, John R. Ehrenfeld, and his former student now professor, Andrew J. Hoffman, as they discuss how to create a sustainable world. Unlike virtually all other books about sustainability, this one goes beyond the typical stories that we tell ourselves about repairing the environmental damages of human progress. Through their dialogue and essays that open each section, the authors uncover two core facets of our culture that drive the unsustainable, unsatisfying, and unfair social and economic machines that dominate our lives. First, our collective model of the way the world works cannot cope with the inherent complexity of today's highly connected, high-speed reality. Second, our understanding of human behavior is rooted in this outdated model. Driven by the old guard, sustainability has become little more than a fashionable idea. As a result, both business and government are following the wrong path – at best applying temporary, less unsustainable solutions that will fail to leave future generations in better shape. To shift the pendulum, this book tells a new story, driven by being and caring, as opposed to having and needing, rooted in the beauty of complexity and arguing for the transformative cultural shift that we can make based on our collective wisdom and lived experiences. Then, the authors sketch out the road to a flourishing future, a change in our consumption and a new approach to understanding and acting. There is no middle ground; without serious change at the most basic level, we will continue to head down a false path. Indeed, this book is a clarion call to action. Candid and insightful, it leaves readers with cautious hope.