So last fall, I got my first job as a high school science teacher. The day I began work, my boss sat me down in his office and gave me a rather intimidating stack of books. Six to be exact... I like reading but some of them a bit difficult... So I would read two at once. I started the one of Marzano's titles that looked like a hard read, to get it out of the way. He was bacically quoting data and explaining all sorts of statistical analyses that had been performed on it and what that meant about how kids learn. Nice, but hard to focus for some of us. Not that Marzano doesn't have a lot to say, I mean he has done much to keep educators aware of what does and doesn't work, but he is hard to focus on for long.
Which leads me to two other books I thought were a great read! Mindset and The Influencer. Both were really great book that had many interesting case studies and talked about specific ways to influence people for the general good of mankind and so forth and so on. I recommend both.
Readicide was also a really good book, in which Kelly Gallagher explains how reading has been made painful and boring to most students over the last few decades. I agree with much of what he said, and find it tragic that some people have never enjoyed the pleasure of sitting down with a good book and losing track of time. Sigh.
Bored yet? I will suffice it to say that I got through them in time to read a seventh book as a summer reading assignment. And now I feel free!
On to choosing my own book for once! But the point I wanted to make was that I was always reading a chapter in one, then a chapter in the other. I don't really know why I do that.
Even now, as I have moved on to work my way into my C.S. Lewis collection, I and reading The Four Loves and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Maybe it's because one is a story and the other is not. I love both books! I've read The Chronicles of Narnia several times in my youth and never tire of them, but I also like the comtemplations of Lewis in his non-fiction books.
Next it may be Jane Austin, Chuck Swindoll, or some creation science books from the ICR...
What sounds good?
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