If you’re planning on becoming a teacher, then there are a few books that should be on your reading lists. These books can provide you with essential insights on how to teach, helping you avoid teething problems when you first start work.
Why Knowledge Matters by Ed Hirsch
Ed Hirsch makes the case that what teachers teach is more important than how they teach it. He argues that students can’t separate their thinking skills from the subject matter itself. And so the shape the curriculum takes is vital. Students need to be able to work with the right facts to learn successfully.
Make It Stick by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel
The authors of Make It Stick believe that learning needs to be hard for it to be successful. Children can’t learn, they say, by simply taking the easy road, doing what comes naturally. Instead, they can only learn if they do mentally challenging activities. Preparing for a test requires more than highlighting sentences in a textbook. Effective learning requires a more active approach.
Reign Of Error by Diane Ravitch
The general consensus is that schools are doing poorly and that education needs to improve. But in Reign of Error, Ravitch makes the controversial and opposite argument. She claims that schools are doing better than they’ve ever done and improving the lives of students greatly. The activities like the Teach for America program plus general reform are making schools places of effective learning once more. The political and economic consequences, she said, will be overwhelmingly positive in the decades to come.
A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown
The authors of A New Culture of Learning believe that educational institutions need to become more playful. They need to respond more to the world around them and create young minds that are able to enter the world as it is today, not how it was forty years ago. It requires changing the syllabus to focus more on developing the individual’s agency and less about the acquisition of knowledge.
Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck
If you want to learn more about teaching vocabulary, then look no further than Bringing Words to Life by Isabel Beck. The book aims to help teachers communicate to students about the best ways to use words to communicate their ideas.
Beck focuses on so-called “tier two” words. These are words that you don’t necessarily need to get by with spoken language but that add new subtle shades of meaning to sentences. These words are more advanced than basic words, such as “run” or “play” and more relevant than domain-specific words, such as “carburettor” or “epithelial.”
Seven Myths About Educators by Daisy Christodoulou
Seven Myths About Educators is all about how teachers need to prioritize skills, not knowledge. Google provides all the knowledge that anyone could possibly need. But what young people need to thrive are real skills that they can deploy in the marketplace. Christodoulou argues that teachers who do not teach skills are perpetuating inequality.
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