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YA Book Club POSTPONED! Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to cancel this Saturday's YA book club meeting. We will reschedule and post it here and on our social media as soon as we can.
Education
This easy-to-use guide explains how to recruit, nourish, and fortify writers of color through innovative reading, writing, workshop, critique, and assessment strategies.
A captivating mix of memoir and progressive teaching strategies, The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom demonstrates how to be culturally attuned, twenty-first century educators.
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering classroom communities. Award-winning educator Felicia Rose Chavez exposes the invisible politics of power and privilege that have silenced writers of color for far too long. It's more urgent than ever that we consciously work against traditions of dominance in the classroom, but what specific actions can we take to achieve authentically inclusive communities? Together, we will address how to:
- Deconstruct our biases to achieve a cultural shift in perspective.
- Design a democratic teaching model to create safe spaces for creative concentration.
- Recruit, nourish, and fortify students of color to best empower them to exercise voice.
- Embolden our students to self-advocate as responsible citizens in a globalized community.
Finally, a teaching model that protects and platforms students of color, because every writer deserves access to a public voice. For anyone looking to liberate their thinking from "the way it's always been done," The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop is a clear, compelling guidebook on a necessary step forward.
2018 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award (Nonfiction) Finalist
A timely indictment of the corporate takeover of education and the privatization--and profitability--of separate and unequal schools, published at a critical time in the dismantling of public education in America
"An astounding look at America's segregated school system, weaving together historical dynamics of race, class, and growing inequality into one concise and commanding story. Cutting School puts our schools at the center of the fight for a new commons."
--Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything
Public schools are among America's greatest achievements in modern history, yet from the earliest days of tax-supported education--today a sector with an estimated budget of over half a billion dollars--there have been intractable tensions tied to race and poverty. Now, in an era characterized by levels of school segregation the country has not seen since the mid-twentieth century, cultural critic and American studies professor Noliwe Rooks provides a trenchant analysis of our separate and unequal schools and argues that profiting from our nation's failure to provide a high-quality education to all children has become a very big business.
Cutting School deftly traces the financing of segregated education in America, from reconstruction through Brown v. Board of Education up to the current controversies around school choice, teacher quality, the school-to-prison pipeline, and more, to elucidate the course we are on today: the wholesale privatization of our schools. Rooks's incisive critique breaks down the fraught landscape of "segrenomics," showing how experimental solutions to the so-called achievement gaps--including charters, vouchers, and cyber schools--rely on, profit from, and ultimately exacerbate disturbingly high levels of racial and economic segregation under the guise of providing equal opportunity.
Rooks chronicles the making and unmaking of public education and the disastrous impact of funneling public dollars to private for-profit and nonprofit operations. As the infrastructure crumbles, a number of major U.S. cities are poised to permanently dismantle their public school systems--the very foundation of our multicultural democracy. Yet Rooks finds hope and promise in the inspired individuals and powerful movements fighting to save urban schools.
A comprehensive, compelling account of what's truly at stake in the relentless push to deregulate and privatize, Cutting School is a cri de coeur for all of us to resist educational apartheid in America.
Every day, 250 children are suspended from school. Many are children of color, deprived of opportunities to experience learning at the same rate and quality as white children. Many families don't feel heard or respected in their child's schools.
Don't Look Away: Embracing Anti-Bias Classrooms leads early childhood professionals to explore and address issues of bias, equity, low expectations, and family engagement to ensure culturally responsive experiences. Importantly, this book will challenge you to consider your perceptions and thought processes:
This book offers strategies, tools, and information to help you create a culturally responsive and equitable learning environment.
Famous for his advocacy of 'critical pedagogy', Paulo Freire was Latin America's foremost educationalist, a thinker and writer whose work and ideas continue to exert enormous influence in education throughout the world today. Education for Critical Consciousness is the main statement of Freire's revolutionary method of education. It takes the life situation of the learner as its starting point and the raising of consciousness and the overcoming of obstacles as its goals. For Freire, man's striving for his own humanity requires the changing of structures which dehumanize both the oppressor and the oppressed.
For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood...and the Rest of Y'all Too has been featured in MotherJones.com, Education Week, Weekend All Things Considered with Michel Martin, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, PBS NewsHour.com, Slate, The Washington Post, Scholastic Administrator Magazine, Essence Magazine, Salon, ColorLines, Ebony.com, Huffington Post Education
If you could teach all kids empathy, tolerance, and compassion, wouldn't teaching all things be easier? Bullying prevention and character building programs are deepening our awareness of how today's kids struggle and how we might help, but many agree: They aren't enough to create school cultures where students and staff flourish. This inspired Angela Stockman and Ellen Feig Gray to begin seeking out systems and educators who were getting things right.
Read it today--fix it tomorrow
Their experiences taught them that the real game changers are using a human-centered approach. Inspired by other design thinkers, many teachers are creating learning environments where seeking a greater understanding of themselves and others is the highest standard. They're also realizing that compassion is best cultivated in the classroom, not the boardroom or the auditorium. It's here that we learn how to pull one another close. It's here that we begin to negotiate the distances between us, too.
Ready to begin but uncertain how? Here's what you'll find inside:
Compassionate classrooms are built one learner at a time. Be that learner. It's time.
Eliminate old-school punishments and create a community of responsible, productive learners
Are you or your teachers frustrated with carrots and sticks, detention rooms, and suspension--antiquated school discipline practices that simply do not work with the students entering our classrooms today? Our kids have complex needs, and we must empower and embrace them with restorative practices that not only change behaviors but transform students into productive citizens, accountable for their own actions.
Replace traditional school discipline with a proven system, founded on restorative justice
In a book that should become your new blueprint for school discipline, teachers, presenters, and school leaders Nathan Maynard and Brad Weinstein demonstrate how to eliminate punishment and build a culture of responsible students and independent learners. In Hack Learning Series Book 22, you learn to:
"Maynard and Weinstein provide practical tips and strategies in the context of real-world examples, guided by the imperatives of changing the behavior and preserving the relationship. An important read for teachers and administrators." -Danny Steele, award-winning principal and co-author of Essential Truths for Principals and Essential Truths for Teachers
Before you suspend another student ...
read Hacking School Discipline, and build a school environment that promotes responsible learners, who never need to be punished. Then watch learning soar, teachers smile, and your entire community rejoice.
The answer to creating innovative teaching and learning opportunities lies within you.
Every educator faces constraints--from budget restrictions to predetermined curriculum to "one-size-fits-all" mandatory assessments. The question is, how can you, as a teacher or administrator, ensure that regulations and limitations don't impede authentic learning?
In Innovate Inside the Box, George Couros and Katie Novak provide informed insight on creating purposeful learning opportunities for all students. By combining the power of the Innovator's Mindset and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), they empower educators to create opportunities that will benefit every learner. Couros and Novak show you how to . . .
Leverage the Core of Innovative Teaching and Learning with a focus on developing meaningful relationships.
Develop the 8 Characteristics of the Innovator's Mindset in your students--and yourself.
Use UDL to proactively design learning experiences that foster voice and choice while addressing barriers that impede learning.
Create learner-driven, evidence-informed learning experiences that provide all students with options and choices to maximize success.
"No one articulates a more compelling, a more urgent, or a more motivating vision of education--for both teachers and their students--than George Couros. No one articulates how that vision can be reached--for every student and teacher--more daringly, more practically, and more inclusively, than Katie Novak. Having them together in one book not only helps us reimagine the goals and practices of education, it reminds us of why we ever wanted to be teachers at all."
--David Rose, PhD. CAST's cofounder and chief education officer, emeritus
"An incredible book! Innovate Inside the Box speaks to educators who are the change agents in their sphere of influence."
--Sarah Thomas, PhD, founder of EduMatch
"George and Katie's combined talents as spectacular storytellers drive this book. You will feel like you are flying through it and then realize how deeply you are learning."
--Loui Lord Nelson, PhD, author of Design and Deliver, and podcast host of UDL in 15 Minutes
In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively--and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens.
Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences. He tells stories of how children are programming their own games, stories, and inventions (for example, a diary security system, created by a twelve-year-old girl), and collaborating through remixing, crowdsourcing, and large-scale group projects (such as a Halloween-themed game called Night at Dreary Castle, produced by more than twenty kids scattered around the world). By providing young people with opportunities to work on projects, based on their passions, in collaboration with peers, in a playful spirit, we can help them prepare for a world where creative thinking is more important than ever before.
"Boaler is one of those rare and remarkable educators who not only know the secret of great teaching but also know how to give that gift to others." -- CAROL DWECK, author of Mindset
"Jo Boaler is one of the most creative and innovative educators today. Limitless Mind marries cutting-edge brain science with her experience in the classroom, not only proving that each of us has limitless potential but offering strategies for how we can achieve it." -- LAURENE POWELL JOBS
"A courageous freethinker with fresh ideas on learning." -- BOOKLIST
In this revolutionary book, a professor of education at Stanford University and acclaimed math educator who has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education, reveals the six keys to unlocking learning potential, based on the latest scientific findings.
From the moment we enter school as children, we are made to feel as if our brains are fixed entities, capable of learning certain things and not others, influenced exclusively by genetics. This notion follows us into adulthood, where we tend to simply accept these established beliefs about our skillsets (i.e. that we don't have "a math brain" or that we aren't "the creative type"). These damaging--and as new science has revealed, false--assumptions have influenced all of us at some time, affecting our confidence and willingness to try new things and limiting our choices, and, ultimately, our futures.
Stanford University professor, bestselling author, and acclaimed educator Jo Boaler has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education. In Limitless Mind, she explodes these myths and reveals the six keys to unlocking our boundless learning potential. Her research proves that those who achieve at the highest levels do not do so because of a genetic inclination toward any one skill but because of the keys that she reveals in the book. Our brains are not "fixed," but entirely capable of change, growth, adaptability, and rewiring. Want to be fluent in mathematics? Learn a foreign language? Play the guitar? Write a book? The truth is not only that anyone at any age can learn anything, but the act of learning itself fundamentally changes who we are, and as Boaler argues so elegantly in the pages of this book, what we go on to achieve.
With the publication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire established himself as one of the most important and radical educational thinkers of his time. In Pedagogy of Hope, Freire revisits the themes of his masterpiece, the real world contexts that inspired them and their impact in that very world. Freire's abiding concern for social justice and education in the developing world remains as timely and as inspiring as ever, and is shaped by both his rigorous intellect and his boundless compassion. Pedagogy of Hope is a testimonial to the inner vitality of generations denied prosperity and to the often-silent, generous strength of millions throughout the world who refuse to let hope be extinguished.
In a work that Lisa Delpit calls "imperative reading," Monique W. Morris (Black Stats, Too Beautiful for Words) chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged--by teachers, administrators, and the justice system--and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Called "compelling" and "thought-provoking" by Kirkus Reviews, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.
Called a book "for everyone who cares about children" by the Washington Post, Morris's illumination of these critical issues is "timely and important" (Booklist) at a moment when Black girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system. Praised by voices as wide-ranging as Gloria Steinem and Roland Martin, and highlighted for the audiences of Elle and Jet right alongside those of EdWeek and the Leonard Lopate Show, Pushout is a book that "will stay with you long after you turn the final page" (Bookish).
Be Relentless!
Hamish Brewer (aka the Tattooed Skateboarding Principal) grew up in a home disrupted by poverty, addiction, and family dysfunction. He understands the feelings of fear, lostness, and desperation that overwhelm too many children today--because that was his life. That experience is what drives him to work relentlessly to empower people living in the toughest areas to envision and create a better future for themselves.
Disrupt the norm. That is the challenge Hamish, a Nationally Distinguished Principal, calls educators, students, families, and communities to accept. And as he authentically shares his life experiences and adventures in this book, you, too, will be inspired to . . .
Believe that something bigger and better is possible.
Pursue your best, whatever it takes.
Transform your school.
Become the educator you always dreamed of being.
Leave a legacy that pushes others to achieve their best!
Relentless is more than a motto. It's a mission of total passion and purpose. And it's the only way to win at work and at life.
Are you ready to take your life and work to the next level?
Be Relentless!
"Hamish proves that passion, love, and thinking outside the box have the power to change children's lives." --Michael Ien Cohen, director and producer, Humanity Stoked
"This book is no gimmick; it is a way of being. It is real. We must fight for all children. We must be all in. So, roll up your sleeves. Show those tattoos. And be Relentless." --John P. Broome, PhD, associate professor of education, University of Mary Washington
"In Relentless, Hamish Brewer shares a story of hope, love, and inspiration for making schools better. It is one part memoir, one part school-improvement guide, and a whole lot of motivation." --Beth Houf, principal, Fulton Middle School; coauthor, Lead Like a PIRATE
Driverless cars are hitting the road, powered by artificial intelligence. Robots can climb stairs, open doors, win Jeopardy, analyze stocks, work in factories, find parking spaces, advise oncologists. In the past, automation was considered a threat to low-skilled labor. Now, many high-skilled functions, including interpreting medical images, doing legal research, and analyzing data, are within the skill sets of machines. How can higher education prepare students for their professional lives when professions themselves are disappearing? In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover--to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot.
A "robot-proof" education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society--a scientific proof, a hip-hop recording, a web comic, a cure for cancer. Aoun lays out the framework for a new discipline, humanics, which builds on our innate strengths and prepares students to compete in a labor market in which smart machines work alongside human professionals. The new literacies of Aoun's humanics are data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy. Students will need data literacy to manage the flow of big data, and technological literacy to know how their machines work, but human literacy--the humanities, communication, and design--to function as a human being. Life-long learning opportunities will support their ability to adapt to change.
The only certainty about the future is change. Higher education based on the new literacies of humanics can equip students for living and working through change.
During the 2016 school year, innovation expert Ted Dintersmith took an unprecedented trip across America. He visited all fifty states, seeking to raise awareness about the urgent need to reimagine education to prepare students for the career and citizenship demands of an increasingly-innovative world.
As he traveled, though, Dintersmith met innovative teachers all across the country -- teachers doing extraordinary things in ordinary settings, creating innovative classrooms where children learn deeply and joyously. Each day, these students are engaged and inspired by their teachers, who in turn help children develop purpose, agency, essential skill sets and mind-sets, and deep knowledge. The insights of these teachers offer a vision of what school could be, and a model for how to help schools achieve it.
