The first few years of teaching are critical to the professional development of effective English teachers. In these crucial years, new teachers establish their identities, learn the ins and outs of the curriculum, acclimate to unfamiliar communities, and cope with student behaviors that they never expected. All of this can be daunting for novice teachers. This book can help. The stories within are written by English teachers in the early stages of their careers. In their carefully crafted narratives, teachers offer practical strategies, professional insights, and a wealth of tips for surviving the first years in the classroom. The narratives are grouped into thematic chapters with brief introductions of key terms, helpful learning activities, and provocative discussion questions, all intended to foster critical conversation about beginning a career teaching English. In a time when many teachers leave the profession too soon, Early Career English Teachers in Action gives voice to those who have decided to stay. More importantly, this book validates teacher narratives as a powerful way of understanding what happens inside of the classroom—a way that provides more authentic evidence of learning than standardized test scores will ever supply.

The first few years of teaching are critical to the professional development of effective English teachers. In these crucial years, new teachers establish their identities, learn the ins and outs of the curriculum, acclimate to unfamiliar communities, and cope with student behaviors that they never expected. All of this can be daunting for novice teachers. This book can help. The stories within are written by English teachers in the early stages of their careers. In their carefully crafted narratives, teachers offer practical strategies, professional insights, and a wealth of tips for surviving the first years in the classroom. The narratives are grouped into thematic chapters with brief introductions of key terms, helpful learning activities, and provocative discussion questions, all intended to foster critical conversation about beginning a career teaching English. In a time when many teachers leave the profession too soon, Early Career English Teachers in Action gives voice to those who have decided to stay. More importantly, this book validates teacher narratives as a powerful way of understanding what happens inside of the classroom—a way that provides more authentic evidence of learning than standardized test scores will ever supply.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking history of 175 years of American education that brings the lessons of the past to bear on the dilemmas we face today—and brilliantly illuminates the path forward for public schools. “[A] lively account." —New York Times Book Review In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.

The role of men in early childhood education and care is crucial for the future of all children growing up in a gender sensitive world. Achieving greater diversity and gender balance in the workforce has proved a challenging goal, despite concerted efforts on the part of individuals, institutions, and governments around the world. Many men remain reluctant to enter the profession, and once they choose this work many leave. This book explores how men in the field make their career decisions to remain in or leave the profession. Taking a broad international perspective and exploring the role of gender in these career decisions, contributors from around the globe unpack how gender concepts influence men’s career trajectories. Through their collaborative research, the team of 17 gender and early childhood researchers investigate various critical and relevant factors such as professionalisation, workplace environment, leadership, day to day interactions in the workplace, societal considerations, internal motivations, agency, masculinities, and critical moments in career decision making. Using cultural, racial, ethnic, and social class lenses to examine men’s career decisions over their professional lives, the contributors’ unique approach uncovers the complexity of the issue and offers evidence-based recommendations for policy both on national and local levels. These include practical suggestions to directors and managers who care about achieving a gender-mixed workforce. Accessible and enlightening, this is a unique resource for scholars, policymakers, and any others in the education community who support boosting the inclusion of men in early childhood education.

This volume examines the agency of second/foreign language teachers in diverse geographical contexts and in both K-12 and adult education. It offers new understandings and conceptualizations of second/foreign language teacher agency through a variety of types of empirical data. It also demonstrates the use of different methodologies or analytic tools to study the multidimensional, dynamic and complex nature of second/foreign language teacher agency. The chapters draw on a range of theories and approaches to language teacher agency (including ecological theory, positioning theory, complexity theory and actor-network theory) that expand our understanding of the concept, while at the same time presenting various analytic approaches such as discourse studies and narrative inquiry. The chapters also analyze the connection of agency to other relevant topics, such as teacher identity, emotions, positioning and autonomy.

In recent years, the process of learning to be a teacher- and particularly the transition from student to teacher- has attracted the attention of many educational researchers trying to gain deeper insights into the nature of learning to teach and to provide effective teacher education programs. These teacher education programs need to be constantly revitalized so that preservice teachers become actively engaged in building new knowledge, challenging their existing beliefs, and striving to attain realistic goals and motivations that enhance their personal and professional learning. Preservice teachers’ reasons for becoming teachers and their motivations to teach can be considered as one of the crucial factors determining the success of educating qualified teachers because qualified teachers presumably will be the ones who engage deeply in their preservice education and their subsequent professional lives.

Resisting Educational Inequality examines poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability in educational contexts at a time of rising inequality and when policy research suggests that such issues are being ignored or distorted within neoliberal logics. In this volume, leading scholars from Australia and across the UK examine these issues through three main focus areas: Mapping the damage: what are our explanations for the persistent nature of educational inequality? Resources for hope: what do we know about how educational engagement and success can be improved in schools serving vulnerable communities? Sustaining hope: how might we reframe research, policy and practice in the future? Using a range of theories and methodologies, including empirical and theory-building work as well as policy critique, this book opens innovative areas of thinking about the social issues surrounding educational practice and policy. By exploring different explanations and approaches to school change and considering how research, policy and practice might be reframed, this book moves systematically and insightfully through damage towards hope. In combining pedagogy, policy and experience, Resisting Educational Inequality will be a valuable resource for all researchers and students, policymakers and education practitioners.