Inspiration
I’ll consistently update this page when I find new inspirational articles or resources not just from the field of education, but from a wide range of sources. Check back regularly to see the categories and lists expand as I read more books and articles and discover new online resources.
Online Resources
Rethinking Schools is one of my favorite education journals. Here is an article about using bilingual poetry in the classroom and another on how to create visual self-portraits based on students’ poetry.
I’m impressed with the way Edutopia documents educational practices with multiple media.
Books
When I taught a course at Brown University — Education, Community, and the Arts — I always began the course with We Make the Road by Walking by Myles Horton and Paulo Freire. It’s about social change, organizational leadership, teaching, and literacy. The book is in the form of a conversation. The organization we started in Mexico, Habla, is partly inspired by Horton’s center Highlander and Freire’s philosophies about literacy and language development.
For theater education the best book I’ve found is Acting, Learning, and Change by Jan Mandell and Jennifer Wolf. It’s the perfect combination of practical theory and concrete ideas that are immediately applicable to the classroom. When I’m stuck lesson planning, I always open Mandell and Wolf’s book to be inspired.
I told the story in one of my blogs about the first book I read as an educator, Ted Sizer’s Horace’s School. I still love opening this book to any page and reading a few paragraphs. By now I know the ideas — I still read it to appreciate how tenderly and gracefully Ted writes about education.
Thanks to a the recommendation of my colleague Patricia Sobral I’m reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. I could do without the activities for developing your own creative potential, but I do like reading about her creative process and when I need a jolt of new ideas for my writing sometimes I open her book and read a chapter.
I’ve always enjoyed educational narratives: teachers writing about their own classrooms. My three favorites are Mike Rose’s classic about literacy Lives on the Boundary, James Herndon’s Beat-style How to Survive in your Native Land, and one that is not as well known, Ron Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence.
Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System is a must-read for educators at every level: teachers, school administrators, academics, and policy makers. For years Ravitch was a supporter of NCLB and all that comes with it. Then, based on the research, she changed her mind. This book is a stunning review and analysis of the research that led to her about face. It’s refreshing to hear someone of such status talking about why she thinks she was wrong.
Update: March 30, 2011
In Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery Kathleen Cushman documents the opinions and ideas of teenagers who share profound insights about what helps them to learn something deeply. It has clear implications for school design and teaching. Kathleen also has a companion blog to her book where she hosts conversations with educators and provides ideas about how to implement the findings of her research.
I can’t believe I hadn’t run into this book before. Perhaps because it is geared more towards parents than teachers, but it’s essential reading for any educator and/or parent: The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. Now in its sixth edition, Trelease presents the last forty years of research around reading in a smoothly flowing narrative filled with stories and sage advice. This book compiles much of the research I’ve read in academic articles and compiles it in such a cogent and fluid way.
Thank you for these recommendations, Kurt. It sounds like I need to get a copy of the Mandell/Wolf book.
The best text I’ve read recently on teaching in general is “The Ignorant Schoolmaster,” a little French book that tells the amazing story of a 19th-century teacher who taught his graduate students French – from scratch – by giving them a work of great French literature and moving through it with them – despite the fact that he knew nothing of their native Flemish. The implications for methodology, power, and desire in the classroom are quite striking. I’m still partial to old-fashioned paper books, but you can get a free pdf of this text here (it does have the markings of a previous reader on it): http://www.mediafire.com/?mn3fjsyuond.
This summer, I finally got around to reading Grotowski’s “Towards a Poor Theater.” While this compendium of articles and interviews has some redundancy, the descriptions (and photos) of JG’s approach to actor training and theater making are instructive and inspiring.
Thanks or the recommendations John. I haven’t read either book so I’ll have to put both on my reading list. I just finished reading Mandela’s autobiography. Quite inspiring.
You do need to get Jan Mandell’s book. It will give you quite a few tools for designing a rehearsal and ensemble building process with your students.
Taking five and a half courses at Harvard’s School of Education and working part time at a K-8 public school in the North End has inspired me daily, hence why it took me so long to share.
Apologies.
One of my favorite courses, entitled The Having of Wonderful Ideas taught by Eleanor Duckworth, is confronting, to put it simply, how we teach. Prof. Duckworth was a translator for Piaget for many years, and has edited two books I recommend: The Having of Wonderful Ideas and Tell Me More (both filled with wonderful essays on teaching and learning). Through this course, I have also been exposed to David Hawkin’s book The Informed Vision, another anthology of essays on teaching and learning.
Three frameworks for teaching and learning have also been introduced- David Perkin’s Teaching For Understanding, Doug LeMov’s Teach Like a Champion, and the latest TFA “Teaching is Leadership.” The latter two books are some of the latest contributions to the field, and while somewhat controversial here at Harvard, my experience and observations of teaching and schools in NYC has led me to more stock in their strategies and stories than some.
More to come! I’ve got seven months to go!
One other recommendation.
I am reading Sarah Lightfoot’s The Essential Conversation, which is about the dynamic between teachers and families, specifically centered around Parent-Teacher Conferences. While I couldn’t take her famed course, The Sociology of Education, her books in general are extremely interesting reads.
Thanks for the thorough recommendations Allison. I’ll have to pick some of these books up when I’m in the states. I’m particularly looking forward to taking a look at the Eleanor Duckworth. And do send more as you experience other classes there at Harvard. Thanks!