Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire

This is another book that's been on my list for a long time, and I figured the summer before I myself am teaching like my hair is on fire might be a good time to actually read it. Although the author of this particular teacher memoir is an elementary teacher - and teaches at a school where homeroom teacher is also P.E. teacher, music teacher, and art teacher - and therefore teaches about six more subjects than I will, there was a lot that I learned from this book. To be completely honest, several chapters were skipped in the interest of relevance to me. One or two other chapters were skipped because the methods and activities he spends considerable amounts of time developing with his students are way more involved than I will be able to manage during my first five years of teaching at least. What was left, though, were excellent nuggets of advice and classroom management techniques that I will definitely think about and use when approaching the start of my classroom. He clearly shows the love he has for his job as he shares stories of students past and present, but also reveals valid and refreshing frustration with administration and policy that doesn't advocate for the best use of time or efforts as far as the students are concerned. I really enjoyed reading this book and will definitely reference several of the chapters and passages once the school year starts.

Teach With Your Heart

Simply put: this book is awesome. I feel like it goes without saying - or it should, anyway - that I'm a huge fan of the movie Freedom Writers, and am also therefore a huge fan of the book, The Freedom Writers' Diary - which I should probably add on here... - but I hadn't gotten a chance to read this one, Erin's memoirs, until this fall. That's partially because I didn't even know that it existed until this summer. But I bought it and started reading it at the beginning of fall, when I also started my student teaching semester, and it was a great choice. In those first couple of weeks before I took over the classroom and it was a little bit more laidback, I ate this book up. It's so good and so inspiring and so...interesting. I loved reading about everything she did and every struggle she had - and finding that I was having many of the same - and every extra effort she went through to go above and beyond for her students in order to help them learn. I think this is where I would like to soapbox a little bit and say that it's been extremely frustrating to be around some teachers who grumble and complain and talk about their students in ways that no parent or administrator should ever overhear, and this book is a refreshing change of pace, showing that caring about your students is possible. And maintaining that spirit even if you happen to get a job where you're surrounded by people who don't share your spunk is possible. And working a little bit - or a lot - more than the typical teacher so that your struggling students who have nothing going for them is worth it. Because, let's be serious, there are a whole lot of teachers who don't even put the minimum amount of effort or heart into it. So yes, this book is awesome. And yes, I highly recommend it. And yes, I believe that the things that she accomplishes in her career are possible if you actually try to make it happen. It's amazing how much students respond to you when they know you genuinely care about them.

Boy

Boy, Roald Dahl's autobiography focusing on his childhood, is a humorous story that describes many isolated events and stories from his memories that are eerily similar to the stories that have become the plots of his novels. People who are huge fans of Dahl's work - like me - will enjoy this book and find the ways his life inspired so many of his plots amusing...but I honestly wasn't as swept away by this one as I was anticipating. My expectations may have been too high because of my love for his other books, but I just didn't find it to be at the same level as his novels. I did, though, still enjoy this one, and think it would be an excellent choice for a middle school student, especially if you are assigning or teaching a unit on autobiographies or nonfiction. Regardless of my slight disappointment, this is still a good book and would be interesting and engaging for middle school students, especially rambunctious and adventurous boys.