Although I've reserved the waning moments of the night for fiction (please, let it be more than a sleep inducer), I've put a number of texts on teaching on my shelf hopefully to fight the madness of periods and bells and of grade-driven students. It is so easy to follow the traditional routine in lock-step and continue the vicious cycle that keeps public education irrelevant in the minds of many students. What's this worth if students find no meaning in it? I hear the challenges in the back of my mind as I write this. Yes, there is the horse-to-water analogy trotting in. I understand. I have been on the losing end of the classroom battle for resistant minds many times before. Yes, I have no control of the student's will. Yes, a teacher can only go so far before s/he has reached the realm bordering on co-dependency. But I am always learning what it means to be a better teacher. This means questioning my own practices regularly. Routines may be comfortable and may help me through a schedule that is impossible to handle for any teacher. Survival is one thing, recalcitrance is another.
So, here is the short list:
Understanding by Design (Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe)
Going With the Flow (Michael Smith & Jeffrey Wilhelm)
The Elements of Language Curriculum (James Dean Brown)
The list will surely expand throughout the year. To be continued.
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