Despite limitations and challenges, teaching about difficult histories is an essential aspect of social studies courses and units across grade levels. This practical resource highlights stories of K–12 practitioners who have critically examined and reflected on their experiences with planning and teaching histories identified as difficult. Featuring the voices of teacher educators, classroom teachers, and museum educators, these stories provide readers with rare examples of how to plan for, teach, and reflect on difficult histories. The book is divided into four main sections: Centering Difficult History Content, Centering Teacher and Student Identities, Centering Local and Contemporary Contexts, and Centering Teacher Decision-making. Key topics include teaching about genocide, slavery, immigration, war, racial violence, and terrorism. This dynamic book highlights the practitioner’s perspective to reveal how teachers can and do think critically about their motivations and the methods they use to engage students in rigorous, complex, and appropriate studies of the past. Book Features: Expanded notions of what difficult histories can be and how they can be approached pedagogically.Thoughtful pictures of practice of some of the most complex histories to teach. Stories of K–12 teachers and museum educators with the research of leading scholars in social studies education. Examples from a wide range of educational contexts in the United States and other countries. Resources useful to teachers and teacher educators. Contributors include LaGarrett J. King, Cinthia Salinas, Stephanie van Hover, Amanda Vickery, Sohyun An, H. James (Jim) Garrett, Christopher C. Martell, and Jennifer Hauver.

This book presents a duoethnographic exploration and narrative account of what it means to be a teacher educator today. Adopting a narrative approach, the book presents different personal, political and institutional perspectives to interrogate common challenges facing teacher education and teacher educators today. In addition, the book compares and contrasts the teacher education landscapes in Australia and the UK and addresses a broad range of topics, including the autobiographical nature of teacher educators’ work, the value of learning from experience, the importance of collegiality and collaboration in learning to become a teacher educator, and the intersection of the personal, professional and political in the development of teacher educator pedagogies and research agendas. Each chapter combines personal narratives and research-based perspectives on the key dimensions of teacher educators’ work that can be found in the literature, including self-study research. Readers will gain a better understanding of the processes, influences and relationships that make being a teacher educator both a challenging and rewarding career. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable asset for university leaders, experienced and beginning teacher educators, and researchers interested in the professional learning and development of teacher educators.

Download a sample chapter As a novice teacher, Meenoo Rami experienced the same anxieties shared by many: the sense of isolation, lack of self-confidence, and fear that her work was having no positive impact on her students. In Thrive, Meenoo shares the five strategies that helped her become a confident, connected teacher. From how to find mentors and build networks, both online and off, to advocating for yourself and empowering your students, Thrive shows new and veteran teachers alike how to overcome the challenges and meet the demands of our profession. Praise for Thrive "Whether you are entering your first year of teaching or your 40th, Thrive feels as if it were written just for you. At a time in our profession when many of us are feeling stretched thin, Meenoo Rami offers strategies to reignite our passions and rediscover why we chose to teach." -Christopher Lehman, coauthor of Falling in Love with Close Reading "Teaching is a profession that eats its young. Meenoo Rami offers guidelines for surviving the challenges of the classroom as well as the faculty room." -Carol Jago, author, teacher, and past president of NCTE "Thrive includes a mosaic of dynamic teacher voices from many grade levels and content areas. Reading their stories deepened my thinking about the immense untapped potential of our profession. Meenoo Rami's vision of teaching and learning can sustain us all." -Penny Kittle, author of Book Love Join the conversation on Twitter at #edthrive.

Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times features chapters co-authored by PK-12 teachers and postsecondary teacher educators from across the U.S. that reflect how they persist, remain, and thrive in the teaching profession. Premised on the idea that co-authors are colleagues and mentors to each other, this book conceptualizes contributors as invested stayers in the education profession. Chapters feature how particular catalysts, or landmark changes in education, have been productive sites for growth, agency, and even resistance across the arc of contributors’ professional lives. The book recognizes that teacher educators and teachers persist because of multiple and overlapping factors between our professional and personal lives, including the relationships we develop with each other as colleagues and mentors in our professional learning. In the public sphere, PK-12 educators increasingly face challenges that limit their ability to initiate their own professional learning. In this book, we considered what might occur if educators had space and time to write together and reflect on how they’ve persisted. These authors narrate themselves as invested stayers who invite personal and professional growth through inquiry, creativity, and innovation.

Sharing the stories of educators working in a diverse range of international contexts, Being a Teacher uses personal narratives to explore effective teaching and learning in global settings. Demonstrating how personal values influence pedagogical practice, and asking how practice can be improved, authors reflect on their experiences not just as teachers, but also as learners, to offer essential guidance for all prospective educational professionals. The book focuses on teacher narratives as a vehicle for consideration of teacher professionalism, and as a way of understanding issues which are important to teachers in different contexts. By sharing and analysing these narratives, the book discusses the increasing complexity of teaching as a profession, and considers the commonality within the narratives. Each chapter includes graphic representations of analysis and encourages its reader to reflect critically on central questions, thereby constructing their own narrative. Being a Teacher provides an in-depth and engaging insight into the education system at a global level, making it an essential read for anyone embarking on a teaching career within the international education market.

Teacher education is experiencing a period of dramatic and arguably irrevocable change within a wider context of turbulence in the English education system. With contributions from a range of teacher educators and academics in the field, Teacher Education in Challenging Times presents sustainable, robust, and informed responses to the challenges posed by the current unrest in the education sector. This book considers the nature of teacher professionalism, the nurturing of truly collaborative partnerships between universities, schools and other agencies, and developments in practice with tangible impact for children and young people. Drawing on important research and illustrations of policy and practice from England and other countries, chapters present a series of counter-cultural ideas, principles and practices that respond to pressing challenges facing educators in a range of contexts. Positive and forward-looking, this book offers a robust defence of the present need for high-quality teacher education in challenging times. This book is a timely contribution to an international debate about the future of teacher educators and should be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teacher education, philosophy and sociology of education, policy and politics of education, and pedagogy. It will also appeal to a range of practitioners, including trainers, local authority officers, professional groups, educational service providers, and educational and school improvement consultants.

Starr Sackstein's insight will help you make the best decisions for yourself and those you serve, whether you have already made the move into leadership or are wondering whether a role in administration is right for you . In this honest and practical guide, Sackstein prompts you to reflect as you stretch for personal and professional growth.