I first read about Helen Keller when I was in 4th grade. When I took swimming, I had two classmates who were blind like Stevie Wonder because they had been born premature and placed in oxygen-enriched incubators. I became curious about what it was like to live in a dark world. I walked around my house and neighborhood with my eyes closed, learning my way around. I gave a book report to my class about Helen Keller’s autobiography, and my classmates became excited about her, too. I learned to read braille, and proofread books for the blind when I was in junior high. I also learned the deaf sign language hand positions.
Zulay doesn’t like being different from her friends, but she is. She’s blind.
She has special teachers and has to learn special things, like how to use a cane to get around, and how to type on her brailler. She also gets to pick her own event for the school field day. When she chooses to run track, her special teacher teaches her how to stay on the track and helps her practice running.
Zulay and her three best friends are all in the same second grade class and study the same things, even though Zulay is blind. When their teacher asks her students what activity they want to do on Field Day, Zulay surprises everyone when she says she wants to run a race. With the help of a special aide and the support of her friends, Zulay does just that.
I’ve been meditating for thirty years, leading meditations with students for the last decade, and most recently working with teachers to explore how they can deepen the experiences of their students by engaging in their inner lives. This work, as well as my own experiences in the classroom as an educator, makes the topic ideal for me to explore and share more about.
This book seems to be even more relevant today after the recent passing of Thich Nhat Hanh. Hanh was truly a groundbreaking monastic and peace activist. He introduced mindfulness to the west as well as the concept of “engaged contemplation.” I think Hanh’s book, Happy Teachers is the ultimate toolkit for bringing these practices fully into the classroom. It is so much more than just mindfulness, but a new way of seeing one’s own teaching and practice.
Happy Teachers Change the World is the first official, authoritative manual of the Thich Nhat Hanh/Plum Village approach to mindfulness in education. Spanning the whole range of schools and grade levels, from preschool through higher education, these techniques are grounded in the everyday world of schools, colleges, and universities.
Beginning firmly with teachers and all those working with students, including administrators, counselors, and other personnel, the Plum Village approach stresses that educators must first establish their own mindfulness practice since everything they do in the classroom will be based on that foundation. The book includes easy-to-follow, step-by-step techniques perfected by…
I like to believe that my own characters struggle with being human. They struggle with their bitterness, their relations to others (or lack thereof), and their unresolved guilt. What happens when guilt is left unresolved? What happens when someone enters into a state of self-imposed isolation? These are topics I enjoy exploring in my work. I’ve enjoyed writing since I was a child. My mother deserves all the credit. At bedtime, rather than reading bedtime stories to me from a book, she would make up a story and then ask me to do the same. This helped me to develop a lifelong love for reading and writing.
Sputnik Sweetheart was the first Murakami book I had ever read. The book had such an impact on me that I almost immediately went out and purchased his other titles.
It is perhaps more experimental than other titles I’ve recommended here, but I enjoyed its non-linear plot and the surreal elements included in the story. Reality and irreality become indistinguishable, and I found myself wanting to know more about Sumire’s haunting disappearance.
A beautifully packaged hardback edition of Haruki Murakami's classic mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes, now with a new introduction by the author
Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. Miu is glamorous and successful. Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel.
Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K…
I am a highly experienced outdoorsman, musician, songwriter, and backcountry guide who chose teaching as a day job. As a writer, however, I am a promoter of creative and literary nonfiction, especially nonfiction that features a thematic thread, whether it be philosophical, conservation, historical, or even unique experiential. The thread I used for thirty years of teaching high school and honors English was the thread of Conservation, as exemplified by authors like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Edward O. Wilson, Al Gore, Henry David Thoreau, as well as many other more contemporary authors.
I have woven numerous delightful and descriptive true life stories, many from my adventures as an outdoorsman and singer songwriter, into my life as a high school English teacher. I think you'll find this work both entertaining as well as informative, and I hope you enjoy the often lighthearted repartee and dialogue that enhances the stories and experiences.
When I started teaching in the early 1990s, I brought into the classroom with me my passions for nature, folk music, and creativity. This book holds something new and engaging with every chapter and can be enjoyed by all sorts of readers, particularly those who enjoy nonfiction that employs wit, wisdom, humor, and even some down-to-earth philosophy.
Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration follows the evolution of a high school English teacher as he develops a creative and innovative teaching style despite being juxtaposed against a public education system bent on didactic, normalizing regulations and political demands. Doherty crafts an engaging nonfiction story that utilizes memoir, anecdote, poetry, and dialogue to explore how mixing creativity and pedagogy can change the way budding students visualize creative writing: A chunk of firewood plunked on a classroom table becomes part of a sawmill, a mine timber, an Anasazi artifact...it also becomes a poem, a song, an essay, and a memoir. The…
I am, have always been, and always will be a realist. Therefore I find ‘Faction’ books, biographies, and memoirs more interesting, as I can learn from them and know that some or all of the events are true. They say ‘write what you know’ and so when it came to writing A Rather Unusual Romance I did just that. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer back in 2005, and decided to weave the 15-year journey back to health I undertook into the pages of a fictional romance, with Alan and Erin similarly affected by thyroid cancer. Every procedure they had to endure was true because I had to go through it as well (without the romance)!
This book is based on fact and is more of a memoir. Pete Springer takes us, sometimes with humor, through the ups and downs of his 30-year teaching career. In doing so he gives much advice suitable for new recruits to the teaching profession. My son Leon, once labelled by teachers as ‘distracted and distracting’, would have benefited from Pete’s superior teaching skills I’m sure.
Who Will You Inspire Today? Teachers face this challenge and responsibility each day, but in the process, the author discovers that his students can also have a profound influence on him. Pete Springer takes you on his memorable thirty-one-year journey in education as an elementary school teacher and offers the many valuable life and teaching lessons he learned along the way. Get ready to laugh out loud at some of the humorous and memorable experiences that all teachers face, feel inspired by the inherent goodness of children, and appreciate the importance of developing a sense of teamwork among the staff.…
For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
I understood that it’s okay to smile in class before Christmas, which holiday gifts teachers really want, and that faculty meetings can be long and dry in other schools. The book gave me insight into one person’s experiences in a school, which sometimes I related to and other times, I didn’t.
This hilarious and candid collection of personal essays about teaching follows in the footsteps of such classics as Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire, The Courage to Teach, and Up the Down Staircase. “Send this book to your favorite teacher. They’ll know you’re sucking up. They’ll thank you anyway” (People).
Shannon Reed did not want to be a teacher, but now, after twenty years of working with children from preschool to college, there’s nothing she’d rather be. “With an irresistible combination of compassion, humor, and engaged storytelling” (Shelf Awareness), her essays illuminate the highs and lows of a job located…
I’ve written about war for years. To be honest, it all began in school when we studied the terrible events of The Great War. Hearing the hearts shatter of men on the frontline never left me. I wanted to understand. I needed to understand. PTSD is something I’m familiar with, even if I’ve never been on the front line in battle. I’m also obsessed with myths, legends, ghost stories, and mysteries. My Lorne Turner series combines my passions and the books shine a light, in fiction, on what happens to old soldiers when they come home.
Back to fiction and spooky places. This weaves history, myth, and reality together until you don’t know which way is up. Beautifully written and researched, it will transport you into the world just beyond ours and it has a level of darkness a horror fan will enjoy. I’d say it’s more of a supernatural thriller, but it twists into horror at times. I love this because it once more weaves the real with the mythological, using British traditions to capture your imagination and transport you to new realities.
A decade ago, teacher Nathan Brookes saw four of his students walk up a hill and vanish. Only one returned - Olivia - starved, terrified, and with no memory of where she'd been. After a body is found in the same woodland where they disappeared, it is first believed to be one of the missing children, but is soon identified as a Bronze Age warrior, nothing more than an archaeological curiosity. Yet Nathan starts to have terrifying visions of the students. Then Olivia reappears, half-mad and willing to go to any lengths to return the corpse to the earth. For…
As a lifelong bookworm, I have always loved curling up with a book, especially one that takes me on an emotional journey through the characters within. I especially love stories with an ensemble cast of characters linked through one common thread and always knew my first novel would be of this format. A fascination with the stories that lie beneath the surface of everyday life keeps me constantly inspired to create new characters that can bring comfort and familiarity to readers but still explore important life lessons in a gentle way.
I love the delightful yet diverse ensemble of characters that form the story of Evening Class and how their individual stories weave together so beautifully. It taught me that it’s never too late to take a risk or try something new and that everybody has a story, no matter how they present themselves to the world. There is something so comforting in Maeve Binchy’s delightful prose and many moments of laugh-aloud humour.
It was the quiet ones you had to watch. That's where the real passion was lurking. They came together at Mountainview College, a down-at-the-heels secondary school on the seamy side of Dublin, to take a course in Italian.
It was Latin teacher Aidan Dunne's last chance to revive a failing marriage and a dead-end career. But Aidan's dream was headed for disaster until the mysterious Signora appeared, transforming a shared passion for Italy into a life-altering adventure for them all...bank clerk Bill and his dizzy fiance Lizzie: a couple headed for trouble...Kathy, a hardworking innocent propelled into adulthood in a…
I’d finally watched the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,which featured Judy Heumann, and wanted to know more about her life and activism. She had this infectious charm that made me want to be a disability rights activist alongside her and her friends, and when I found she’d written a memoir, I had to read it.
In describing her life’s path and tenaciousness in taking on powerful institutions, she lays out a roadmap for others who need to fight for human rights like those of trans people.
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction
"...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."— Buzzfeed
One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human.
A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn’t built for all of us and of one woman’s activism—from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington—Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann’s lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society.
For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
I enjoyed reading about an American teacher who spends a year teaching in a middle school in France.
She brings her husband with her, leaving behind a stable, well-established life in America, and views this an adventure. The struggles she faces as she realizes that living in a foreign country is much less romantic than she anticipated. It made me remember how I too found it tough living overseas as I adjusted to new cultures and learned new langauges.
I appreciated how she compared American culture with the French one, and how she let me know about her friendships with colleagues at her new school. I related to how she mastered thriving in a foreign culture, embracing the unknown, and understanding that the mysteries she uncovered were magical.
Jacqueline Donnelly recounts with humor her ex-pat life teaching English in a middle school in Bordeaux, France. Hoping to escape her predictable American life in the States, she runs away in search of adventure and self-discovery.The story reveals daily life in France, and the encounters with wonderful and not so wonderful characters along the way.It is perfect reading for anyone tempted to run away and ideal for a book club.
I grew up and have often lived around water and ships—Norfolk, VA, Aiea, Hawaii, Savannah, Georgia—and I’ve always had a fascination with things nautical. As a cartoonist, I’m of course always on the lookout for comics that overlap with this interest. Curiously, these sorts of stories seem to be few and far between in the U.S. but more of a genre staple in Europe—France in particular. I tried to highlight here not just books that I particularly like, but books that are representative of the breadth and depth that the comics medium can offer in art style, tone, and intended audience. I hope you enjoy some of these as much as I have!
As captivating as it is disturbing, this nautical tale of a schoolteacher who’s accidentally shanghaied (this seems to be a theme with nautical comics!) and winds up having to figure out how to survive amidst a crew of sadists—the worst among them the captain, who’s devoted his life to committing the most depraved acts possible, a scheme designed to ensure he’ll meet his dead wife in Hell.
In this graphic novel cartooned by a promising up-and-comer, a schoolteacher and a gangster team up when pirates shanghai them.
Chris Wright’s Blacklung is unquestionably one of the most impressive graphic novel debuts in recent years, a sweeping, magisterially conceived, visually startling tale of violence, amorality, fortitude, and redemption, one part Melville, one part Peckinpah. Blacklung is a story that lives up to the term graphic novel, that could only exist in sequential pictures ― densely textured, highly stylized, delicately and boldly rendered drawings that is, taken together, wholly original. In a night of piratical treachery when an arrogant school…
