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eleanor_gravestock's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
3.75
Basic but useful tips.
bethnellvaccaro's review
3.0
I basically liked this book, but didn't agree with some of it. I'm sure that many people will be offended by the book, but there are many common sense, useful strategies in here.
ogybuns's review
4.0
I really liked this. I've heard/read a bit of criticism about it, but I thought it contained some pretty useful ideas. And I like the open acknowledgment that we CAN help kids achieve from ALL different backgrounds. This demystifies a lot of how to do that, while still acknowledging that this is hard work.
carlasofiaferreira's review
1.0
If I could give this book negative stars, I would. Throw this book into the recycling bin if you've made the mistake of purchasing it and pick up a copy of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed instead. As a teacher of four years, let me say that this is *not* how you manage a classroom if your goal is something other than reproducing whiteness and treating students like robots.
heregrim's review
3.0
Put this up there with Wong's First Days of School, it is a beginning teacher book for those who do not yet have a toolbox to use with students. These do lead in the direction of authoritarian type teaching, but that is not necessarily a bad thing for a new teacher to develop. Worth handing to mentees to help them start on the right foot.
inhimmel's review
1.0
This book is full of coercive, inhumane strategies that equip and encourage teachers to police students' bodies and compel their compliance. Teachers or teacher educators endorsing these techniques should be required to examine in depth and answer for the ways that they uphold the underlying racist structures in our nation's public schools, both traditional and charter. If your goal is to strip young people of their humanity and to force them to perform racist ideas of "school readiness," then this is the book for you.
Also, I've just always loved that joy (the J Factor!) doesn't appear until technique 47 of 49.
Also, I've just always loved that joy (the J Factor!) doesn't appear until technique 47 of 49.
bookishpip's review
5.0
As with any book on teaching (that I’ve read), there have been sections that are relevant and sections that are less so - but the ones that have been relevant, I have found have been total game changers in my classroom. ‘No opt out’, ‘cold calling’ and ‘right is right’, for example, are things that as teachers we tend to expect and want to enforce in students - but it is sometimes tricky to know how to execute these ideas effectively. This book has been really helpful for that.
I also like that there was a section entirely devoted to how to effectively teach reading. Though I don’t entirely agree that individual silent reading is without benefit, there is definitely food for thought with regard to alternative suggestions made in this book.
I particularly liked the interviews with the ‘Champion Teachers’ in the appendix.
I also like that there was a section entirely devoted to how to effectively teach reading. Though I don’t entirely agree that individual silent reading is without benefit, there is definitely food for thought with regard to alternative suggestions made in this book.
I particularly liked the interviews with the ‘Champion Teachers’ in the appendix.
juliaogden's review
4.0
I think this book is a must for pre-service teachers, but only if taught with a critical lens. The author says right off the bat that he does not consider himself a champion teacher, but he has spent countless hours in classrooms and studying tape with other researchers in order to compile what he has determined to be concrete "champion teacher" techniques.
I don't agree with everything he says (some of it reads a little ivory tower, and some of the stuff he touches on concerning race makes me raise an eyebrow--not to say he's blatantly racist; it just reads like he hasn't spent a ton of time examining the world of education through a critical race lens), but most of it is good stuff. I'm entering my 5th year of teaching, and this book is definitely useful to me. I imagine it would have varying levels of usefulness to more experienced teachers as well.
I don't agree with everything he says (some of it reads a little ivory tower, and some of the stuff he touches on concerning race makes me raise an eyebrow--not to say he's blatantly racist; it just reads like he hasn't spent a ton of time examining the world of education through a critical race lens), but most of it is good stuff. I'm entering my 5th year of teaching, and this book is definitely useful to me. I imagine it would have varying levels of usefulness to more experienced teachers as well.