About book Teach Like A Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students On The Path To College (K-12) (2010)
There are certainly some really great pieces to this book to put into place in a classroom. As a first year teacher this was helpful to some degree when realizing some mistakes that I had made and needing to change gears in classroom management and severe behavioral issues that I was NOT prepared for. Recommend as a go to book to pick and choose ideas when you are confronted with some unexpected bumps that need smoothing out. Definitely added more tools in my toolbox to pull out as needed, and preparing my list of what I will do better next year. This was a strongly recommended read from my administration. I read it somewhat begrudgingly but have to admit that many of the 49 techniques could be very useful. Particularly for new teachers, this book has some good, solid recommendations for how to increase student engagement. Until he gets to the section about reading. The last few chapters felt tacked on and beyond his realm of expertise. The more he discussed his strategies for teaching reading the more he seemed like someone obsessed with classroom control and less like someone interested in engaging students' minds and imaginations. Everyone reads the same book at the same pace. Ugh! That is the death knell of the love of literature. Yes, a short story, poetry, sections of a textbook, maybe an introduction to a novel can be read like that. Maybe before discussing a section in detail you can do a whole-class read-aloud with key passages re-read for emphasis. But don't make a whole class of students march lock-step through your selected class novel. Choice, self-pacing, and personal reflection lead to a love of reading. Not this approach. He also put an odd emphasis on critiquing Nancy Boyles's reading strategies. This seemed like an oddly pointed diatribe in a book of useful strategies. And, of course, his bias toward charter schools is highly problematic. Surely he is aware that such a sample ignores the majority of schools that have a very different classroom structure. It worries me that public school administrators recommend a book that clearly does not speak to their situation.
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I recommend this for not just teachers, but ANYONE who works in a school setting with children!
—sarah
Classic techniques to inform new and old teachers alike.
—Eli
Best required grad school reading of the summer.
—marcieboyd
