A mother's honest, unvarnished, and touching memoir about the life lessons she learned from a son with autism

Funny, poignant, charming and deeply sad at times, this is a fascinating insight into a teaching life. With his sharp wit and poet's eye, Tim Heath writes of a forty-year career, mostly in New Zealand but also in Samoa. He's worked in small country schools, in big city schools, at the Correspondence School, in primary schools and in secondary schools. He's been a principal and a deputy principal. Teaching wasn't his first choice, but once in the classroom he found his calling. Tim is a passionate advocate for children and their learning, and his educational philosophy is illustrated through touching anecdotes of children and their struggles and successes. Written against the backdrop of changing times in New Zealand, this memoir is a deep dive into education and its place in our world.

Meet Miss Bindley—an ordinary teacher with an unusual appetite. Miss Bindley doesn’t eat the usual fare like tuna melts and meatloaf. Instead, when her stomach grumbles, it’s the class pets she has her eye—er, stomach—on. Watch out! You never know who might be next.

In the middle of painful personal times, Chicago journalist Berner makes a decision that changes his life forever--he takes a job in a public school outside Chicago where the students are representations of society's "throw-aways."

The book also shines a spotlight on the role of the teacher and how he or she can do the right things to get the absolute best from students. Some of the best learning takes place when, rather than imposing on young people a pre-determined curriculum, you find the stimulus that is relevant and engaging for them and build from there. Then the curriculum starts to emerge in a way that simply hooks students into learning almost despite themselves. There is nothing for them to push against ('What's the point?!', 'This is boring..!') as they have helped shape the direction of the lesson in a way that makes it real and useful to them. All this without them even realising what is going on! They have been 'lured into learning' and the process is shared with teachers in this book, with examples as to how it can be done and how the author has done it. Reading this book will support teachers in developing ideas that motivate everybody in the classroom, from infants to secondary and beyond. Whether you're new to teaching or have vast experience you will find in this book inspiration to raise achievement, improve behaviour and enhance creativity in the classroom; and you will change the way you approach lesson planning forever. Shortlisted for the Education Resources Awards 2013, Secondary Resource - non ICT category Oops Book Launch, Waterstones, Sheffield, May 2012: Photography by Jane Hewitt www.janehewittphotography.co.uk

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators. The short answer is—it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn. In stories both humorous and touching, Ken Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students’ discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

The author gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift-a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence" and with a passion for quality describes what's possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. The author tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.