Skip to main content

Book Review: Quick Answers for Busy Teachers

The scene outside my window allowed me to finish a book today.

It is a well-known fact that I am a huge fan of educator and author Todd Whitaker (@ToddWhitaker).  Not a day goes by that I don't find myself using a tip or idea from one of his books.  One of the most-used books in my Todd Whitaker library is The 10 Minute Inservice, which he co-authored with Annette Breaux.

So I was ecstatic to see that Whitaker and Breaux had teamed up to write another gem, Quick Answers for Busy Teachers: Solutions to 60 Common Challenges. 

The book did not disappoint.  It was loaded with tips for dealing with students, adults, classroom management, instruction, and professionalism. In classic Whitaker style, it is straight-forward and easy to apply to current practice.

Our school hired five new teachers this year and two more are teaching a new grade level for the first time.  I have marked several pages to share with these teachers, as well as those who are experiencing some of the challenges addressed in this book.

While I enjoyed this book, I am most excited to start reading the latest Whitaker masterpiece, School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It.  And with the snow still falling and Emergency Leave already granted for tomorrow, looks like I will be able to do just that.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Busy Epidemic

The same conversation plays out numerous times per day, with a very predictable script: “Hi! How are you?” “Doing well, just busy, how are you doing?” “I understand, I’m very busy over here too.” It’s like there is an underground competition to show that we are the busiest, most overworked professional within our spheres.   “I worked all weekend on (insert project here).” “I can’t meet today, I’m just too busy with (insert another project here).” Guess what? WE’RE ALL BUSY. It may look different for each of us, but we are all overwhelmed with to-do lists that are a mile long. Why do we feel the need to showcase that we are working ourselves to exhaustion? It's as if we have to defend the use of our time. I am a big believer that our words shape our mindset and demonstrate our belief system.  I don't want to believe in the system of "busy."  My work should speak for itself without me having to explain all of my tasks to everyon...

Back in the Saddle: Why Every School Leader Should Return to the Classroom

This past school year I had the opportunity to return to the classroom.  Our division wanted to open up a pathway for students interested in becoming educators, but we did not have a teacher available to teach the Teachers for Tomorrow course.  Since I still considered myself a teacher and had been missing the daily interaction with students since moving to the central office level, I eagerly volunteered to take on this new course. I immediately remembered the joy that comes from planning engaging learning opportunities and building relationships with students as well as how quickly one can accumulate a stack of papers to grade. This experience had an enormous impact on me as an educational leader so I wanted to share some reasons why I believe every school leader should get back in the saddle:  Be an instructional model How best to model the instructional expectations you expect from faculty?  Walk the walk.   There have been several teach...

Time and Priority #SAVMP

As you can see from the blog archive to the left, perhaps managing time is not my strong suit.  At least when it comes to blogging.  :) The problem with managing your time as a school administrator is you never know what your day will be like. There is no scheduling who will walk through your door or what issue is waiting on your voice mail or Inbox.  Anticipating the day's events is part of the excitement of being a school leader, it just wreaks havoc on your to-do list. Everyone is busy.  We all have items that need our immediate attention, items that we are excited to tackle, and items that we put off until the very last minute. The difficulty with time is that it is limited.  The to-do list is never completed, we just chunk away at it a little more each day. I saw the quote below on a blog several years ago and I frequently refer back to it as I am deciding which task to tackle. Everyone is busy.  (It was worth repeating.) But our jobs are f...