After my mom heard a 2007 NPR interview with Rafe Esquith, she called me *raving* about him and telling me to look for his book Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56. After checking the reviews, we bought the book for our Professional collection...and regretfully, it's only been checked out once or twice.
Well, everything changed recently when our WONDERFUL principal decided to give 6 hours of Alternative Staff Development for staff members who will read this book over the summer. It now has a hold list of people who want it next!
Oh, and it's good, too. Here are just two of the four quotes I've written down so far:
"Reading is not a subject. Reading is a foundation of life, an activity that people who are engaged with the world do all the time. It is often exceedingly difficult to convince young people of this fact, given the world in which they are growing up. But it is possible, and when you consider what is at stake, the effort is worth it. If a child is going to grow into a truly special adult--someone who thinks, considers other points of view, has an open mind, and possesses the ability to discuss great ideas with other people--a love of reading is an essential foundation."
"Parents need to take their kids to the library...We are trying to establish a set of values in our children; it helps when they are surrounded by others who share a fervor for reading. At the library, children can browse and make discoveries that wouldn't be possible online; at the same time they can interact with readers of all ages...The best way to combat the indifference that surrounds our children is to take them to places where intelligence, enthusiasm, and a joy for reading are standard operating procedure. The library is the best place to begin."
Parents and teachers will love this book. Recommended. (Kirsten, you get it next; I'll get it to you tomorrow!)
It's the little things...books and chai and soft pajamas...
3 comments:
Yeah! I'll make sure and finish "Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature" today. Maybe Ms. Raney will give us credit for the 20 Texas Lone Star books we are reading. I'll have to ask her about that after all, we read them for our job so we can tell the kids if they are good or not :-)
Good for Ms. Raney! She is a wise leader of readers!
Your destiny, Kristy, was strongly influenced by all the time you spent in that quaint little library just around the corner from our home in Plymouth, NH, which had been frequented by such people as Daniel Webster and Nathaniel Hawthorne. A picture of the building, now the home of Plymouth Historical Society, may be seen at http://www.plymouthnh-historicalsociety.org/ (a new library has been built right next door, but I'm sure it can't begin to hold the charm or lore of the one in which you spent so many hours as a child.) What a wonderful legacy a library offers!
God bless librarians, and God bless Ms. Raney.
Reading is like red blood cells to the body...but, we live in an anemic society. A pale populace watches curiously as the healthy few transfuse their minds with an old analog...book.
Yet...they know the secret...this transfusion of information and stories actually is pleasurable.
Ohhhh...to be a Librarian! The Blood Bank of the mind.
Papa
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