Book Reviews

Strategies for Educating African-American Children (Teaching for Spiritual Growth) 
by Judith St. Clair Hull (Author), Judith C. Hull (Author)
Urban Ministries, Inc. (October 30, 2006)
This is an ideal book for teachers of African-American children ages 6 through 11. It will equip educators with tools to create powerful Afrocentric curricula for their students. Topics covered include contemporary learning theories, personality development, effective teaching styles, and addressing children’s spiritual needs. This book fills a particular need as there are very few resources focused on the Christian/spiritual education of African-American children.

Teacher Education With an Attitude: Preparing Teachers to Educate Working-Class Students in Their Collective Self-Interest
by Patrick J. Finn (Editor), Mary E. Finn (Editor)
State University of New York Press (March 2007)
Using a social justice approach to teacher education, the contributors address the need to prepare teachers to understand the way social class, race and culture impact efforts to educate working-class students. By helping prepare teachers to strengthen democracy through education, the contributors offer ways to help them develop “critical consciousness” – the will to address society’s injustices and inequities. Teachers who collaborate with their students, their families and others to challenge the policies that keep the hierarchical structure in place, develop their own educational and political power alongside their students. These educators see schools as sites of struggle for democracy, and their students learn to direct themselves toward outcomes that are in their collective self-interest.

Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity (Paperback)
by Carl A. Grant (Author), Christine Sleeter (Author)
Routledge; 1 edition (February 27, 2007)
Doing Multicultural Education for Achievement and Equity is a hands-on, reader-friendly textbook that aims to engage education students in critical reflection and self-examination as they prepare to teach in increasingly diverse classrooms. As it promotes an understanding of the history of and need for multicultural education in schools, Carl Grant and Christine Sleeter’s book connects multicultural education to pre-service teachers’ personal and professional spaces and, further, to an understanding of equity in school and society. Taking a constructivist perspective on personal development and learning, the text aims to help pre-service teachers develop tools to learn about students and their communities, about themselves, and about social relations in which schools are embedded.   

Learning from Latino Teachers
by Gilda Ochoa (Author)
Jossey-Bass (October 5, 2007)
Learning from Latino Teachers offers insightful stories and powerful visions in the movement for equitable schools. This compelling book is based on Gilda Ochoa’s in-depth interviews with Latina teachers in schools with significant Latin immigrant populations. The book offers a unique perspective on the educational challenges facing Latinos. The teachers’ stories offer valuable insights gained from their experiences coming up through the public education system as students and then becoming part of the same system as teachers.

How to Handle Difficult Parents: A Teacher's Survival Guide 
by Suzanne Capek Tingley (Author)
Cottonwood Press, Inc. (September 28, 2006)

Be it “Pinocchio’s Mom,” who thinks her child never lies, the “Caped Crusader,” who will stop at nothing to have a book eliminated from the curriculum, or the “Helicopter Mom,” who hovers and swoops in to protect her child from disappointment, impossible parents of all kinds are catalogued in this humorous handbook that also offers educators tips for dealing with them. Each chapter features a hilarious caricature that illuminates common parent anxieties followed by specific, practical methods for addressing the parent and the problem. Easily implemented advice on face-to-face confrontations helps teachers approach each conflict with the confidence to get their point across and the composure to keep their professional principles intact.