Read more
Personal and probing, evocative and wide-ranging, the letters that compose this book ask and attempt to answer some timeless-and timely-questions: What makes a teacher or a class memorable? How can the teacher-student relationship be supported and strengthened? What does being "educated" truly mean?
List of contents
Prologue
1: I'm hoping that you remember me
2: The opposite of burnout
3: Drills and dog clickers
4: Beneath, beyond, around the corner
5: To enjoy thinking
6: It bled into our lives
7: In the author's hands
8: The misunderstanding of education
9: The capacities that define us
10: There was no end, it seemed
11: Call it an injustice
12: The poetry inside us
13: Thinking about teachers
14: To take the long view
15: To reach judgments
16: Seduced by "observable goals"
17: How to be human
18: The best lessons
19: The crux of the problem
20: The way we conceptualize the world
21: The exaltation of ignorance
22: A hybrid profession
23: An ongoing, vital conversation
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Sources and Suggestions for Additional Reading
About the author
Roberta Israeloff directs the Squire Family Foundation, an educational advocacy foundation that champions the inclusion of philosophy in the public school curriculum, and that helped launch both PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) and the National High School Ethics Bowl. A teacher and editor, she has also authored or co-authored over a dozen books, including four volumes of personal non-fiction, and scores of short stories, essays and articles appearing in national publications.
George McDermott has taught students in all junior- and senior-high grades; in rural, suburban and inner-city settings; and in central, charter, and neighborhood schools. He has also spent decades as a speechwriter and ghostwriter, helping business executives, research scientists, economists, physicians and designers communicate accurately and effectively-and sound as articulate as they are talented in areas other than communication.
Summary
Personal and probing, evocative and wide-ranging, the letters that compose this book ask and attempt to answer some timeless-and timely-questions: What makes a teacher or a class memorable? How can the teacher-student relationship be supported and strengthened? What does being "educated" truly mean?
