The Truth About Teaching, Revised and Expanded

Description

A beautiful gift book that offers encouragement, comfort, and inspiration for new (and veteran) teachers

This beautifully designed book is a celebration of the joys and challenges of the teaching life. Author and veteran educator Coleen Armstrong is a wise, witty, and caring mentor. Her words of encouragement will resonate with new teachers, with students in teacher education schools, and with veteran teachers who wish to remember that they are not alone in an often lonely profession. From lesson plans to large classes; salaries to student engagement; germs to geometry-learning (or remembering) to love both the highs and lows of the profession has never been easier, or more fun.

Contains a wealth of wise, humorous, and practical advice for all teachers

Includes over 150 tips, suggestions, and ideas

Co-published with Inspiring Teachers, a teacher-created organization

Chapter 1: Getting Started.

Including words of wisdom like: Never lose sight of your own power.

Chapter 2: The Profession and the Politics.

Including words of wisdom like: You’ll learn far more than you’ll ever teach.

Schools will never run like businesses––nor should they.

Chapter 3: Finding Your Teacher Persona.

Including words of wisdom like: Create and cultivate a commanding presence.

Don’t feel the need to resolve every problem.

Chapter 4: Money and Other Compensations.

Including words of wisdom like: The toughest assignments often pay the least.

Look for rewards in unconventional places.

Chapter 5: Nuts and Bolts.

Including words of wisdom like: Beg for chances to observe the most talented veterans.

These are lifetime relationships.

Chapter 6: Rules and Routines.

Including words of wisdom like: Ask for help sooner rather than later.

Stop your class two minutes early.

Chapter 7: Keeping It Creative.

Including words of wisdom like: Move heaven and Earth to get access to a VCR or DVD player.

Play with a bit of old-fashioned competition.

Chapter 8: Classroom Management––Otherwise Known as Discipline.

Including words of wisdom like: The disciplinary conundrum is still educational rocket science.

Everyone would rather be a success than a failure.

Chapter 9: Tricky Strategies All Teachers Can Master.

Including words of wisdom like: Know your own hot buttons––and then communicate them.

Give your students regular pep talks.

Chapter 10: What’s Next.

Including words of wisdom like: Create a private oasis, where every single student feels safe, cherished, and valued.

About the Author.

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Coleen Armstrong is a thirtyyear teaching veteran who has received many awards for her work as an inspiring educator, including being named one of five finalists to the Teachers Hall of Fame. Coleen is a sought-after educational advice columnist, and recently wrote columns for Education Week’s “Ask the Mentor” series in Teacher Magazine. Coleen also hosted a local television talk show on educational and community topics for ten years.

The Truth About Teaching

Coleen Armstrong’s The Truth About Teaching is the perfect gift for every teacher. Filled with over 150 inspirational tips, this book is a wonderful celebration of the joys and challenges of being in a classroom. With her characteristically witty, wise, and caring manner, Armstrong offers realistic words of encouragement in a thoroughly upbeat, often laugh-out-loud funny assessment of teaching that’s simultaneously honest about the realities of this noble profession.

This wonderful collection will resonate with teachers who are new to the profession as well as with seasoned veterans who will recognize their own experiences within these pages.

Published in Partnership with Inspiring Teachers. Inspiring Teachers is an organization dedicated to empowering and guiding new and veteran teachers, administrators, and mentors. For over ten years, Inspiring Teachers has helped educators worldwide through a comprehensive website, a collection of books, and staff development offerings.

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What I Wish the Veterans Had Told Me

The Truth About Teaching

Coleen Armstrong

Praise for The Truth About Teaching

“I wish I could’ve gotten my hands on this book when I was a beginning teacher. I saw my own classrooms over the years, and I saw future classrooms, too.”

—Cindi Rigsbee, 2008–2009 North Carolina Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist

“This book describes the tough realities of what teachers do, but also the myriad rewards and benefits too. New and old teachers need something like this to help them rejuvenate. I think this book should be in every teacher induction program across the continent, and in every school of education.”
—Lois M. Adams, principal, L.M. Montgomery Elementary School, Prince Edward Island

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