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This book is full of practical teaching ideas, techniques for communicating with parents, and administrative strategies to motivate and inspire. Once you pick it up, you will want to share this book with other teachers.
This is a warm and moving account of how a teacher made a safe yet stimulating place for young children to play and grow (and learn). Sydney teaches respect for all people, and by the end of the year the four-year-old children not only read and communicated clearly, but cared for each other as well. You will meet Millie, who arrived almost inarticulate and learned to love language; Ivan, who started out breaking everything he could reach, to get back at a world that had brutalized him from birth. He learned to curl up with a book and be gentle; and the twins, Deena and Dinah, who taught Sydney about their home- grown support systems. Sydney thinks critically about American education based on her experience. She tells us many ways of showing respect for children and urges teachers to listen more carefully to children and their parents.
Can you still have a home if you don't have a house? In the spirit of The Truth About Jellyfish and Fish in a Tree comes a stunning debut about a family struggling to find a place to belong. To climb a tree, always think in threes and you'll never fall. "Two feet, one hand. Two hands, one foot," Cora's father told her when she was a little girl. Now Cora is in middle school, her father is gone, her family is homeless, and Cora has to look after her younger sister, Adare, who needs a lot of looking after. When their room at the shelter is ransacked, Cora's mother brings them to an old friend's apartment, and Cora hopes this will be a place she can finally call home. When doubt seeps in, Cora makes an escape of her own and discovers something that will change how she sees her family and her place within it. The beautiful debut by Melissa Sarno, the author of A Swirl of Ocean, will take root in your heart and blossom long after you've turned the last page. "[A] heartbreaking yet hopeful story of a family searching for a place to belong." --Publishers Weekly "[A] thought-provoking debut about the meaning of home and the importance of family." --The Horn Book Magazine
'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered' Umberto Eco These days it is impossible to get away from discussions of whether the book will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting ignorance of the future. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carri�re and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air. This thought-provoking book takes the form of a conversation in which Carri�re and Eco discuss everything from how to define the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse. En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carri�re is most sad to have sold. And while, as Carri�re says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive. 'A storming book. The next best thing to sitting in Umberto Eco's living room after dinner; a dream collection of lucid and fascinating discussions' Nick Harkaway 'Hurrah for philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco and playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carri�re, who have come together to praise the medium... Fans of Eco and Carri�re will be charmed' Time Out 'An entertainingly free-range dialogue about writing past, present and future' Independent
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press). • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
This book gives adults who work with young children a substantial look at some thoughtful, creative, reflective modes of thinking about their work. It has rich resources for the teacher who wants to grow in respect for children's capabilities and lessons for growing one's ability to listen to the intentions of children. It is rich in examples of real teaching in real American classrooms, influenced by work in Reggio Emilia, Italy. For teachers, and also for parents, of children from 2-6. Written by and for teachers of young children, this exhaustive examination of early education is rigorous and thorough.
Just as young children learn about the world around them by playing its scripts, teachers learn about teaching and learning by playing a teacher's script, observing what happens, and discussing all of the possibilities with other teachers. This book applies a constructivist model to staff development, describing staff development activities that were open in design and that defined philosophy and process but not outcomes. Each of the stories told in the book involved a partnership between one or more early childhood programs and some other agency or individual working with teaching staff to facilitate growth. Following an introduction by Elizabeth Jones exploring how teachers construct knowledge about teaching and how "growing" teachers differs from training them, the chapters in the book are: (1) "Telling Our Stories: The CDA Process in Native American Head Start" (C. David Beers); (2) "Moving Out of Silence: The CDA Process with Alaska Native Teachers" (Kathrin Greenough); (3) "Catching Teachers 'Being Good': Using Observation To Communicate" (Margie Carter); (4) "Teachers Talking to Each Other: The Pasadena Partnership Project" (Elizabeth Jones, Joyce Robinson, Diedra Miler, Richard Cohen, and Gretchen Reynolds); (5) "Change Making in a Primary School: Soledad, California" (Jane Meade-Roberts, Elizabeth Jones, and Joan Hillard); (6) "Co-Creating Primary Curriculum: Boulder Valley Schools" (Maja Apelman); (7) "Teachers as Observers of Play: Involving Teachers in Action Research" (Barbara Creaser); (8) "I'll Visit Your Class, You Visit Mine: Experienced Teachers as Mentors" (Lisa Poelle); and (9) "Looking Back: What We've Learned about Partnerships" (Elizabeth Jones). (HTH)
