Resources for CCV education classes

As the subject is resources, which is generally to say texts, I too (and perhaps predictably) appreciate the books available from Rethinking Schools, 1001 E. Keefe Ave., Milwaukee WI 53212.

Before I discuss the potential applications of these in our education classes I would like to also note the book Teaching Outside of the Box * How to Grab Students by Their Brains by LouAnne Johnson (of Dangerous Minds fame and played by Michelle Pfiefer in the film) from Josey-Bass/Wiley, 2005, isbn #9780787974718.

I've been using Ms. Johnson's book in a current section of Foundations of Education and I would use it again. Certainly it's rather a more traditional--and politically neutral--approach than anything from Rethinking Schools. However its an extremely practical book that accurately describes the actaul experience of teaching, the challenges of the profession, and provides students with a wide range of tools and techniques to face that challenge.

Ms. Johnson quickly gets down to what we used to call the nitty-gritty, the day-to-day tactics required in the classroom. She discusses getting lessons prepared and organized, getting the most out of the first week of class, classroom management and discipline, motivation and morale, everything a new teacher would need to know before he or she actually ventured into that classroom: dangerous minds indeed.

For the same class, and from Rethinking Schools, I've also been using Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1, Teaching for Equity and Justice, and Linda Christensen's Reading, Writing, and Rising Up. However, when planning the class for the upcoming spring term I've decided not to use the latter text and instead will employ Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 2. Both volumes in the series include many of Ms. Christensen's best writing exercises in any event. And both volumes include a full spectrum of lesson plans, methodsd for motivation and classroom management, and a philosophy that ties the chapters togetherinto a single, coherent strategy. Rethinking Schools offers a whole system and a philosophy of education that is consistent with CCV values.

Either combination of three books will cost less--and be more engaging and relevant--than any standard education texts, rather too many of which are assured cures for insomnia.

And I would still use Christensen's Reading, Writing, and Rising Up and her new volume Teaching for Joy and Justice in the proposed CCV education course, Teaching Methods for Literacy Development. And I would use the Rethinking Schools book, Rethinking Globalization, edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson, for another proposed CCV education course, Teaching in a Global Community.

Again, the rethinking schools texts recognize that teaching is theory certainly but in the final analysis these books recognize that teaching is practice, praxis, something that we do actually; that teaching is a skill set like that required for cooking, gardening, or carpentry; that teaching is the day-to-day work of honest laborers.

In every Rethinking Schools book we'll find lessons and examples that are grounded in the lives of our students, critical, multi-cultural, anti-bias, pro-justice, participatory, experiential, heopeful, joyful, kind, visionary, activist, academically rigorous, and culturally sensitive: teaching as a job of work, and teaching as an ideal; teaching as hard and teaching as fun, teaching as hard fun.

Read these and use these; you'll be glad.