Best books for educators...everyone from teachers to superintendents

We are in our second year at my high school with a professional studies book club. Thus far the effects of the book club have been predominately positive, and as such we look forward to continuing the book club in the years to follow. Please share books that you have read or heard about, as well as who you think (teachers, administrators, central office staff, all...) would benefit from reading this book the most.

Thank you,

Justin Tarte
http://justintarte.blogspot.com/

Tags: and, book, collaboration, development, growth, professional, sharing, study

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Permalink Reply by Kev on September 27, 2010 at 7:26pm

Everything Bad is Good For You (Anyone can benefit, its a great read period)

The Global Achievement Gap (Primarily for teachers/admins but applicable to anyone on a school campus)

The Essential 55 (As above but even more teacher focused)

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Permalink Reply by Justin Tarte on September 27, 2010 at 7:28pm

Kev - thanks for the quick response - I really like the title of the first book you mentioned!

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Permalink Reply by Cynthia L. Wilson on September 28, 2010 at 5:42am

Say Please, Say Thank You, by Donald McCullagh. He offers a return to civility through asking for people to "promote the little acts of courtesy embodying the simple respect due to members of a civilized society." (quote from one of the reviews). It's an easy, quick, logical read that makes perfectly good sense. As teachers, we model, model, model for our students, and this book will make people think about some things that they may have forgotten about within the quickness of the everyday school-world.

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Permalink Reply by Justin Tarte on September 28, 2010 at 5:43am

Cynthia - thank you for the response - getting back to the basics!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Gonzalez on September 28, 2010 at 7:05am

Last year I read The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein on the recommendation of Kelley Gallagher. It provided plenty of food for thought.

I also read Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do about It by Kelley Gallagher last year. It reminded me about the importance of building background knowledge, especially for students who lead insular lives.

Right now I'm reading The World is Flat 2.0: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas Friedman. I got the book last night so I haven't any opinions on it yet. I just noticed that there's a 3.0 update on the title on Amazon.

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Permalink Reply by Zach Vander Veen on September 28, 2010 at 8:37am

I highly recommend Why Students Don't Like School. Despite its rather lame title, it's a very good book at explaining what cognitive scientists know about the human brain and, accordingly, provides some good advice on teaching. Dan Willingham takes on a few sacred cows (such as Howard Gardner's "Multiple Intelligence" theory...which has no empirical evidence to back it up), but with solid, research based evidence.

It's a book that very definitely changed the ways I teach.