The-Best

zaretta11111

It’s that time of year again — time to share the choices from readers of this blog for the best education-related book they read in the this past year.

You might also be interested in:

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2014

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2013

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2012

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2011

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2010

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2009

The Best Education-Related Books Visitors To This Blog Read In 2008

I’m also adding this post to All My 2015 “Best” Lists In One Place.

My choice is Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain by Zaretta Hammond. You can read an interview I did with the author here.

Now, here are the choices of many readers who sent their comments and tweets (even if you didn’t send them in earlier, you can still leave your favorites in the comments):

Heather Gauck:

Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger. Amazing tips and direction for educational transformation.

Shelly Buchanan:

Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson. Please read. Right away.

Kris Giere:

This is Not a Test by Jose Vilson. It resonated with me on so many levels and does well to remind us of the complexity and intersectionality of life as an educator.

Matt Renwick:

The Prize
by Dale Russakoff is a balanced, close observation of how Newark schools spent the $100 million gift from Mark Zuckerberg. That the funds made little to no impact on the daily lives of students is both sad and surprising. Russakoff doesn’t pit charter schools vs. public schools, but rather shines a light on the realities of operating a large urban district plagued by poverty.

Jim Bentley:

Make Just One Change By Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. The QFT (Question Formulation Texhnique) is a powerful way to get students asking deep questions and guiding inquiry.

George Panagiotakopoulos:

“Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom”

By Daniel Willingham. This is an amazing book which answers so many questions about teaching and learning. It is a cognitive psychologist’s point of view about how learning can be more efficient and how a teacher can maximize her contribution to students’ learning. I think that it is a book which every teacher must read!!

Jaime:

The best book I read is “The Motivated Brain: Improving Student Attention, Engagement, and Perseverance” by Gayle Gregory, Martha Kaufeldt

Bill L:

Finally got to Mike Schmoker’s Focus. Glad I read it.

Breanna Lukes:

A Path Appears by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Amazing book about doing the most good by focusing our time, energy, and money where it will make the most impact. These writers and the amazing people and organizations they discuss leave readers beieving that the world is full of hope and kindness, despite what the media might report.

Lisa Pettifer:

2015 produced a lot of edu reading that I found challenging, nourishing or affirming. More challenging in places than Headstrong by Dame Sally Coates, more nourishing than John Tomsett’s Love Over Fear and far more affirming than anything else was Flip the System, a collection of essays edited by René Kneyber and Jelmer Evers, and with a range of contributors including Gert Biesta, Tom Bennett, Mark Priestley and Carol Campbell. This book made my summer. It rarely leaves my side. It offers enormous hope that the teaching profession can heal itself, direct itself and monitor itself…

Sara Hjelm:

This was hard.. I read so many good books this year. In the end there are two, both powerful enough to get hashtags of their own on Twitter; David Daidau’s #WrongBook and #FlipfheSystem. David’s book filled my summer, a slow read while the rain poured down, but Flip the System has been my constant companion ever since I got it and still is, so in the end that is my choice. Get it, read it and let it flip your thinking! Go Flip the System!

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

Again, feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments section…