Heart of the School / Stress Avoidance
by Rita Platt · Published 05/20/2018 · Last modified 12/12/2019
As the school year winds down and heightened emotions proliferate, it’s easy for teachers to lose their cool. Student (and parent) behavior that would have been met with patience earlier suddenly ratchets up teacher frustrations. Rita Platt shares her coping strategies – laughter included!
It’s difficult to learn from someone we don’t trust, writes literacy consultant Regie Routman. Bonding with individual students and their families builds that trust. Routman offers 10 ways to make sure that none of our students ever become “mostly silent and unseen.”
David Palank’s Class Hacker is so enthusiastically and conversationally presented and informative that it needs to get into the hands of teachers in order to change instruction, writes former principal and writer Mary Langer Thompson.
Laila Sanguras helps educators better understand the nature of grit and think about how to build a culture of grit for all students, including the gifted. Reviewer Linda Bollendorf says the author, a former middle grades teacher, writes with humor and practicality.
Great educators don’t exist in a vacuum. More often than not they are supported by loved ones who also play a part in the accomplishment of a teacher’s daily miracles. Consultant Debbie Silver describes how spouses, children, and parents share in the teaching life.
Doug Robertson offers meaningful, practical advice on how to insure that having or being a student teacher benefits both sides. In addition to plentiful laughs, teacher-librarian and former mentor Rita Platt finds useful tips on many aspects of having a student teacher.
Heart of the School / Social Emotional Learning
by Rita Platt · Published 09/03/2017 · Last modified 07/31/2024
Joy is a part of a healthy climate, and in places where we spend huge chunks of time – like school – healthy climates are critical to the success of students and teachers alike. Rita Platt shares some of the ways she bring smiles and laughter into classroom culture.
In Renew! Become a Better—and More Authentic—Writing Teacher, Shawna Coppola challenges us to reconsider three long-standing traditions of classroom writing instruction: a step-by-step writing process, graphic organizers, and the prioritization of words over images.
This is a needed, practical book for superintendents, school leaders, and others who want to know how districts work and how these key figures should function in terms of school governance and working relationships, says retired principal Mary Langer Thompson.
We might think a new school year should start off with solemnity. But that’s not the message teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron has garnered from her survey of 6-12th graders across the country. Students learn more when teachers share their humanity and their humor ASAP.
