This book creates a unique discursive environment to consider how initial teacher education can support student teachers in practical and personal senses, in what they can do and who they are. What is it to care? To develop our voice? To educate in beautifully risky ways? Engaging with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell, Gert Biesta and Nel Noddings, central capabilities of the educator are suggested: Acknowledgement, Autobiography, Imagination, Interruption, Attention and Uncertainty, culminating in the essential, unifying capability of The Ordinary, underpinned by Complexity and Hope. This book will appeal to those interested and engaged in initial teacher education, professional development and support from early years to higher education and practicing educators. It aims to enrich theoretical as well as practical discussion, to influence how we live, how we think, and how we treat each other.

A plain-English guide to teaching phonics. Every parent can teach reading—no experts need apply! Too many parents watch their children struggle with early reading skills—and don't know how to help. Phonics programs are too often complicated, overpriced, gimmicky, and filled with obscure educationalese. The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading cuts through the confusion, giving parents a simple, direct, scripted guide to teaching reading—from short vowels through supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This one book supplies parents with all the tools they need. Over the years of her teaching career, Jessie Wise has seen good reading instruction fall prey to trendy philosophies and political infighting. Now she has teamed with dynamic coauthor Sara Buffington to supply parents with a clear, direct phonics program—a program that gives them the know-how and confidence to take matters into their own hands.

About the Book ‘Two classrooms in this school double up as a night hostel for students whose parents migrate seasonally so that they do not miss school.’ For a large majority of Indian children, their only chance of an education is the government school. For nearly two decades, S. Giridhar has been crisscrossing the country in the course of his work with the Azim Premji Foundation, travelling to remote corners and observing the public education system. In these years, he has met hundreds of government school teachers—profoundly committed to improving the lives of the children in their care. These are teachers who defy all constraints because of a burning belief that every child can learn. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Teachers has emerged from Giridhar’s in-depth study of these inspirational teachers and the ecosystem they function in. Innovative and creative, dogged and resourceful, firm and kind—the government school teacher wears many a hat. This book is a tribute to their commitment and resilience.

The concept of the ordinary, along with such cognates as everyday life, ordinary language, and ordinary experience, has come into special prominence in late modern philosophy. Thinkers have employed two opposing yet related responses to the notion of the ordinary: scientific and phenomenological approaches on the one hand, and on the other, more informal or even anti-scientific procedures. Eminent philosopher Stanley Rosen here presents the first comprehensive study of the main approaches to theoretical mastery of ordinary experience. He evaluates the responses of a wide range of modern and contemporary thinkers and grapples with the peculiar problem of the ordinary—how to define it in its own terms without transforming it into a technical (and so, extraordinary) artifact. Rosen’s approach is both historical and philosophical. He offers Montesquieu and Husserl as examples of the scientific approach to ordinary experience; contrasts Kant and Heidegger with Aristotle to illustrate the transcendental approach and its main alternatives; discusses attempts by Wittgenstein and Strauss to return to the pre-theoretical domain; and analyzes the differences among such thinkers as Moore, Austin, Grice, and Russell with respect to the analytical response to ordinary language. Rosen concludes with a theoretical exploration of the central problem of how to capture the elusive ordinary intact.

A celebration of extraordinary teachers! The boy's breakfast is ordinary, his walk to school is ordinary, even his thoughts are ordinary. But when he goes to his classroom and sits down at his desk, his day begins to change - a new teacher, Mr. Gee, bursts into the classroom with an extraordinary idea that challenges all the children to use their imagination. Suddenly an ordinary day is turned topsy-turvy, and the boy is inspired in a way that will change him forever. The rollicking words and pictures celebrate the unexpected in this tribute to great teachers and students everywhere. Once Upon an Ordinary School Day is a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

On the education of children with learning and behaviour problems.