Thursday, March 15, 2012

Inaugural Teachbad Book Club Eventacular | Mr. Teachbad

Inaugural Teachbad Book Club Eventacular | Mr. Teachbad:


Inaugural Teachbad Book Club Eventacular

I am delighted to kick off the Teach­bad Book Club with our very first book, Why Great Teach­ers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exo­dus (2010) by Katy Far­ber. The author has gra­ciously agreed to par­tic­i­pate in our dis­cus­sion. Ms. Far­ber wel­comes and invites you:
Thanks for host­ing this book club, Peter. I hope your read­ers find the book help­ful, val­i­dat­ing, and moti­vat­ing. Mostly, I hope they find that it gives voice to the real con­cerns of teach­ers today. My goal is to work to make teach­ing more sus­tain­able, more humane, and more empow­er­ing. Maybe that would put Teach­bad out of business!
But truly, we’ve got to find ways to pre­serve our cre­ativ­ity, our pas­sion, and our voice in teach­ing. Too many teach­ers quit, or stay when they are drained by the sys­tem. No other edu­ca­tional “reform” will work one iota if we don’t address teacher sustainability.
What are your ideas, read­ers? How do you think schools, states, and our coun­try could make teach­ing more sus­tain­able and humane?
Here are some ques­tions that might get us started:
1) As an indi­vid­ual, can you iso­late any of the annoy­ances well-described in the book (par­ents, test­ing, time, stu­dent