The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Normalites: The First Professionally Prepared Teachers in the United States is a new original work which explores the experiences of three women, Lydia Stow, Mary Swift and Louisa Harris, who were pioneers in the movement in teacher education as members of the first class of the nation's first state normal school established in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1839. The book is biographical, offering new insights derived from exceptional research into the development of the normal school movement from the perspectives of the students. While studies have provided analysis of the movement as a whole, as well as some of the leaders of the initiative, such as Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, there is a lack of rich, published information about the first groups of students. Understanding their accounts and experiences, however, provides a critical foreground to comprehending not only the complexity of the nineteenth century normal school movement but, more broadly, educational reform during this period. Arranged chronologically and in four parts, this book explores the experiences of Lydia Stow, Mary Swift and Louisa Harris during their normal school studies, their entrance into the world and commencement of their careers, the transitions in their personal and professional lives, and the building of their life work. Throughout these periods, their formal educational experiences, as well as broader moments of transformation, are considered and how life paths were shaped. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students and faculty connected to teacher preparation programs. More than 100,000 students are currently awarded baccalaureate degrees each year in Education. Over 80,000 of these students are women. Their experiences are rooted in the pioneering efforts of Lydia Stow, Mary Swift, and Louisa Harris at our nation's first state normal school. It is a particularly fitting time to share their experiences as the 175th anniversary of the start of formal, state sponsored teacher education, the normal school movement, will be celebrated in 2014.

Based on rapid advances in what is known about how people learn andhow to teach effectively, this important book examines the coreconcepts and central pedagogies that should be at the heart of anyteacher education program. Stemming from the results of acommission sponsored by the National Academy of Education,Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends thecreation of an informed teacher education curriculum with thecommon elements that represent state-of-the-art standards for theprofession. Written for teacher educators in both traditional andalternative programs, university and school system leaders,teachers, staff development professionals, researchers, andeducational policymakers, the book addresses the key foundationalknowledge for teaching and discusses how to implement thatknowledge within the classroom. Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends that,in addition to strong subject matter knowledge, all new teachershave a basic understanding of how people learn and develop, as wellas how children acquire and use language, which is the currency ofeducation. In addition, the book suggests that teachingprofessionals must be able to apply that knowledge in developingcurriculum that attends to students' needs, the demands of thecontent, and the social purposes of education: in teaching specificsubject matter to diverse students, in managing the classroom,assessing student performance, and using technology in theclassroom.