Teacher Leadership Today

TLN Book Reviews: Professional Literature for the Teacher Leader

Members of the Teacher Leaders Network regularly comment on professional books that may be of interest to colleagues. Below you'll find links to our most recent reviews, with brief excerpts. Click on a review’s headline to read the compete article. Publishers interested in submitting books for review should contact TLN moderator John Norton.

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A Compelling Case for Detracking Schools

Detracking for Excellence and Equity
By Carol Corbett Burris and Delia T. Garrity
(ASCD, 2008)

Reviewed by Sherry L. Annee
Biotechnology Teacher
Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School (IN)
Teacher Leaders Network

The authors’ coverage of detracking is so comprehensive that it leaves readers with far more answers than questions -- while simultaneously inspiring us to improve the educational opportunities for students at our local schools. Upon finishing the book, one is left cheering for Garrity and Burris as they claim, “By altering our methods of instruction in heterogeneous classes, we can accomplish what tracking never could – excellent educational experiences for all students.”

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A Book to Inspire a Culture of Trust and Build Teacher Community

Protocols for Professional Learning
By Lois Brown Easton
(2009, ASCD)

Reviewed by Michael Fisher
Instructional Coach and Consultant (NY)
Teacher Leaders Network

The protocols in this book help to inspire the atmosphere and culture of trust and collegiality that is necessary to open and maintain conversations among teachers. When there is a framework of understanding, and a foundation of value for everyone’s participation and unique voice, it helps everyone move forward.

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I Want to Belong to This Club!

A Sense of Belonging: Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers
By Jennifer Allen
(2009, Stenhouse Publishers)

Reviewed by Marti Schwartz
Teacher, Novice-Teacher Educator (RI)
Teacher Leaders Network

The plan of teacher support is frequent, intensive, individualized, and brilliant…. What Allen has given to all of us is a powerful model of strengthening the practice of novice teachers, in a book that is enjoyable to read and inspiring to emulate.

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You Can Be a Change Leader

Leading Change in Your School
By Douglas B. Reeves
(ASCD, 2009)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stein
Special Education Teacher (NY))
Teacher Leaders Network

As I read this, I readily grasped the author's attempt to create an "I can do this in my school" mindset. This book is a great read for those who are new to the idea of becoming a change leader or for those who wish to extend their abilities. It is helpful for teachers or administrators who have already succeeded with a few ideas and feel the need to continue making positive changes.

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Multiple Intelligences in Your Classroom

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom
By Thomas Armstrong
(ASCD, 2009)

Reviewed by Kenneth Bernstein, NBCT
High School Government (MD)
Teacher Leaders Network

One should be able to see how the book can be productively used for a somewhat narrow purpose, such as curriculum development, without having to absorb the entire volume. Or one can choose to browse through the various sections to grasp more fully the possible implications of applying Multiple Intelligences theory in a variety of ways, up to and including developing a school around the principles of MI.

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Inside a Hip-Hop Lit Class

Beats, Rhymes and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity
By Marc Lamont Hill
(Teachers College Press, 2009)

Reviewed by John M. Holland, NBCT
Early Childhood Educator (VA)
Teacher Leaders Network

This is not a how-to book. It does not include planning sheets, suggestions for "texts" or discussion prompts. It is an incredibly well documented artifact of a successful experiment in bringing students' culture into the classroom and understanding that culture as a researcher and teacher. I recommend it because I learned things about myself, my students' families, and research.

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And Then I Got to Dewey . . .

Classroom Conversations: A Collection of Classics for Parents and Teachers
by Alexandra Miletta and Maureen Miletta
(2008, The New Press)

Reviewed by Marti Schwartz
Novice-Teacher Educator (RI)
Teacher Leaders Network

(T)hese articles, these thinkers, from Vivian Gussin Paley and Eleanor Duckworth advising us to listen and learn from our students, to Peggy McIntosh and Sonia Nieto who seek to open our eyes to the cultural realms of our students in order to help us to understand their needs — all have wise words for us.

Public School Insights: Uncommon Education Sense

Ever hunger for an education blog that puts reasonableness ahead of shock value? A blogger who's willing to examine all sides of an issue and present a nuanced view of education policy and school reform? If so, the Public School Insights blog, supported by the Learning First Alliance, will satisfy your appetite.

PSI offers a mix of podcasts and interviews with visionary educators, newsy feature stories, and opinion pieces written by blogkeeper Claus von Zastrow, LFA's executive director, that manage to be both balanced and fiercely pro- public education. PSI also features guest opinion pieces by teachers, including nearly a dozen written by members of the Teacher Leaders Network.

In addition, the Public School Insights website has built an ever-growing collection of articles under the banner School Success Stories. Some are original products; others are based on previously published stories that have been condensed and vetted by PSI staff. Here's a recent sample, describing the successful literacy program at a high-poverty elementary school serving a small fishing community on Alabama's Gulf Coast.

The Learning First Alliance, by the way, is a coalition of 20 or so major education associations—from NEA and AFT to the National School Boards Association and the PTA. This helps explain, perhaps, the extra effort to make all opinion pieces as fair and balanced as possible. But this balancing act has not kept von Zastrow from writing timely observations that are not only lively and thought-provoking but frequently produce stimulating follow-up comments from the blog's many followers.

If Public School Insights isn't in your sights on a daily basis, it should be.

PD Sourcebook Taps the TLN Wellspring

The Fall issue of the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook from Teacher Magazine and Education Week includes content and comments from quite a few TLN Forum members.

Most prominent is Nancy Flanagan, who authors the article “Collaboration and Insight: Teacher Learning in Action,” describing a project that connects teachers in a rural NC school district with National Board Certified peers — using a virtual professional network. Flanagan shares some lessons she’s learned serving as an online moderator of teacher learning communities:

One of the pitfalls for facilitators in the online professional development age is the tendency to revert to direct instruction—to tell, to explain, to be the sage on the virtual stage. As we built learning modules for the ‘Return on Investment’ initiative, we learned to design open-ended prompts and flexible, safe opportunities to try ideas and ask for help.

The theme for this new edition of the PD Sourcebook is described by editor Anthony Rebora this way: “Can digital technology help break the decades-long hold of generic ‘sit-‘n-git’ professional development?” In an interview with Rebora, Harvard’s Chris Dede offers his answer: “Only if people use the tools well.”

In other stories, we see examples of teachers who are "using the tools well," building their own personal learning networks independent of any official professional development requirements. Writer Elizabeth Rich reports on the rise of teacher-instigated social networks — using the NING-based The English Companion (started by teacher-author Jim Burke) as one prime example. Rich includes quotes from TLN member and PLC consultant Anne Jolly at several points in the story.

Another article explores Twitter’s potential to support student and teacher learning and includes comments from TLN members Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Bill Ferriter, both popular edu-bloggers who write frequently about Web 2.0. Ferriter and Nussbaum-Beach cite Twitter as their favorite learning tool because it allows them to access a trusted network of colleagues more or less instantly when they need ideas, advice or resource suggestions.

Finally, the Sourcebook’s Blog Watch feature highlights TLN-sponsored bloggers Renee Moore and Ariel Sacks — Moore for a post at TeachMoore about the difficulty of disentangling individual teacher contributions to a student’s growth; and Sacks for a contribution to the Public School Insights blog a few months ago, where she shared ideas about increasing teacher retention in hard to staff schools by rewarding valuable teacher leadership.

What Makes for a Great School Leader?

October's theme at Educational Leadership is Developing School Leaders. In an article titled "Insights from Leaders," EL's editors asked educators to submit their response to the prompt: "What personal insight have you had about school leadership?" Of the 11 responses published in the print version of Educational Leadership, six were contributions from members of our national Teacher Leaders Network Forum. Our colleagues who appear in the article include Anne Jolly (AL), Marsha Ratzel (KS), Larry Ferlazzo (CA), Kathie Marshall (CA), Susan Bischoff (FL), and Susan Graham (VA). Alas, the article is currently available online only to ASCD members. If you have a membership or have access to a print copy of EL, we urge you to check out these insights into effective school leadership from a savvy group of teacher leaders.