Items17The creator’s order
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Vivian Gussin PaleyA boy who kept telling the class about a broken helicopter gave Paley a problem to think through as a preschool teacher. In The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter, she follows Jason’s recurring story and the class’s attempts to bring him into its play. Read it for a way to listen when a child keeps…0 - 2
Maria MontessoriBorn Aug 31, 1870Montessori’s notes from the first Children’s House in Rome became The Montessori Method. Children worked with materials they could handle and repeat, and she watched what happened when they could choose what to do next. The book is worth opening for that change in the teacher’s job. Observation…0 - 3
Paulo FreireBorn Sep 19, 1921Freire’s work with adult learners in Brazil helps explain why dialogue comes first in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Chapter Three’s discussion of generative themes asks teachers to build a lesson around situations learners already know and can discuss. Read it for a way to decide what goes into a…0 - 4
Bell hooksBorn Sep 25, 1952In Teaching to Transgress, hooks brings the questions she faced as a college teacher into essays on classroom talk, race, and authority. Try “Language: Teaching New Worlds / New Words” for an account of what a class stands to learn when students can use forms of speech they already know. Pair it…0 - 5
John DeweyThe School and Society grew out of talks Dewey gave to parents at the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School. Follow his discussion of occupations like weaving. A shared practical task gives children something concrete to investigate together, including where a material comes from and who…0 - 6
Sylvia Ashton-WarnerWhile teaching Māori children in New Zealand, Ashton-Warner asked for words that mattered to the children and used those words to begin teaching reading. In Teacher she calls this their key vocabulary. Its practical question still has force. Which words would a beginning reader choose to recognize…0 - 7
Lisa DelpitDelpit taught in an open elementary classroom in Philadelphia. In the essays collected in Other People’s Children, she considers which students can already infer a school’s expectations and who needs those rules spelled out. “The Silenced Dialogue” is a place to start if you want a clearer way to…0 - 8
John HoltHolt’s years teaching fifth grade supplied the observations in How Children Fail. Start with the section on fear and failure, where he asks what children do when a mistake could embarrass them in front of a teacher or peers. It changes what you might look for when a child guesses or stays quiet.0 - 9
Deborah MeierThe Power of Their Ideas draws on Meier’s work in East Harlem public schools. At Central Park East Secondary School, students had to defend work they had done and explain the evidence behind their conclusions. Read Meier to see how a school can make asking for evidence a habit in several subjects…0 - 10
A. S. NeillNeill’s book Summerhill describes the school he built around voluntary lessons and community self-government. Read the accounts of school meetings alongside the parts about lessons. Pupils can choose whether to attend a class, and they still live under rules the community makes together.0
