Preschool Teachers’ Lives and Work focuses on preschool teachers as people, what they do, and how they are affected by what they do. Highly politicized and hotly debated, preschool today is increasingly focused on comparatively narrow views of school readiness and academic outcomes which are generally in opposition to the broader view of readiness proposed by NAEYC. This powerful book, based around interviews and data drawn primarily from Head Start programs, illustrates the profound humanity of this profession and underscores the pressing and insistent need for greater investments in teachers’ well-being.

This important book is the result of an in-depth inquiry into the lives and work of six outstanding preschool teachers. Through a creative, original combination of interviews, letters, vignettes, interpretive analysis, and reflections, the author describes and links together the events, people, and experiences that have made these women the excellent teachers they are.Ayers’ method of using autobiographical reflection to understand teaching practice will be excellent for use in pre-service teacher education classes and inservice teacher renewal efforts. Well-written and highly readable, this book is essential for early childhood practitioners—both women and men—at all levels and within all types of services, and will appeal to researchers and parents, as well.“If teachers are to continue to grow, they must at some point begin to study themselves.” —From the Foreword by Vivian Gussin Paley

The best-selling book of easy-to-implement classroom lessons from the world’s premier educational system—now available in paperback. Finland shocked the world when its fifteen-year-olds scored highest on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a set of tests evaluating critical-thinking skills in math, science, and reading. That was in 2001; even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education—with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing—produce students who match the PISA scores of other nations with more traditional “work ethic” standards? When Timothy Walker started teaching fifth graders at a Helsinki public school, he began a search for the secrets behind the successes of Finland’s education system. Highlighting specific strategies that support joyful K–12 classrooms and can be integrated with U.S. educational standards, this book, available in paperback for the first time, gathers what he learned and shows how any teacher can implement many of Finland's best practices. A new foreword by the author addresses the urgent questions of teaching, and living, in these pandemic times.

Two people deeply in love finally say their vows after ten years of friendship and uncertainty. But then the marriage takes a heartbreaking dive when one of them is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The other struggles to stay afloat while raising their four children even as she confronts the uninvited guest of mental illness. Author Maggie May Ethridge asks: Am I welcome at the marriage table when my husband is lost to bipolar and my wedding band is being twisted in anxiety underneath the cloth? Less about the exact nature of bipolar disorder and more about the nature of love under fire, Atmospheric Disturbances brings us into the heart of a marriage.

Discover new, practical methods for teaching literacy skills in your early childhood classroom. Has teaching early literacy skills become a stumbling block to getting your preschool students kindergarten ready? Break out of the tired “letter of the week” routine and learn how to transform your lessons with fun and effective techniques. Teach Smarter: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood Teachers will equip teachers to infuse every aspect of their teaching with exciting hands-on literacy teaching methods that engage students and help them build authentic connections with books, so that 100% of their students will have a strong literacy foundation and will be fully prepared for success in kindergarten and beyond. Respected author Vanessa Levin, veteran early childhood educator and author of the “Pre-K Pages” blog, breaks down the research and translates it into realistic, actionable steps you can take to improve your teaching. Features specific examples of teaching techniques and activities that engage students in hands-on, experiential learning during circle time, centers, and small groups. Offers a simple, four-step system for teaching literacy skills, based on the foundational principles of early literacy teaching Demonstrates how to build your confidence in your ability to get 100% of your students ready for kindergarten, long before the end of the school year Understand the problems with traditional literacy teaching and identify gaps in your current teaching practice with this valuable resource.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.

In Between Teaching and Caring in the Preschool, John C. Pruit argues that preschool teaching is more than a set of roles and duties tied to institutional expectations. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, twenty-three interviews and countless conversations with preschool teachers, and analysis of preschool documents, Pruit opens the black box of the preschool to show the complexity of the preschool teacher identity as it unfolds in everyday practices of teaching and caring. His analysis of preschool teachers’ talk and interaction addresses pertinent sociological and early childhood education themes, including classroom management, social control, emotions, and identity construction. He demonstrates there is more going on in the preschool than teaching young children and caring for them. Through practices of classroom management and teaching language, preschool teachers socialize children into education contexts and exert social control in and through teaching practices. By managing emotions, preschool teachers also manage impressions of themselves and the preschool. He also shows how preschool teachers use resources like Montessori pedagogy and their lived experience to construct authenticity. Pruit concludes that institutions, such as ECE, shape identities within and away from the institution.