Laura Kalyta - The Classroom Teacher's Survival Guide (3rd Edition)

SUMMARY

I choose The Classroom Teacher's Survival Guide: Practical Strategies, Management Techniques, and Reproducibles for New and Experienced Teachers because I actually really wanted to read it, and I am glad I did. It is full of ideas and suggestions about every aspect of the classroom.

The first section of the book is titled The Basic Teacher Toolkit.  It starts off with a chapter about the planning and having a successful first day of school. Things mentioned are organizing and arranging the classroom, setting rules, building relationships, and even work sheets with suggestions of ice breakers that you can do. The second chapter is about the student, and what the teacher can do to interact and teach students in the best way possible. The third is reversely about the teacher, and how to best manage time and stay organized.

The second section of the book, Essentials for Effective Teaching and Learning, is full of tips to better the basic teacher's skills. The chapters are about creating great lesson plans, different teaching strategies, and assessing. Chapter 5, Interactive Teaching and Learning Strategies is extremely helpful in describing different strategies that can be used to make lessons more valuable. Such strategies include debates, field trips, discussion, brainwriting, podcasts, and more.

Striving for Excellence is the third and last section of the book, and is about going deeper as an educator. The first chapter in this section, chapter 7, is about creating a learning community in the classroom. It is full of ideas on how to work with other staff members, parents, as well as students successfully. The next chapter is titled Staying on Top of Your Game and brings attention to stress management tips in order to combat the stress that is felt with this profession. The book ends with a whole chapter full of resources for new to seasoned teachers.

Again, this book was very informative, and has plenty of worksheets that can be used or checklists of things teachers should consider in the classroom.

(Note: I tried scanning pages of the text, however was unsuccessful due to my technology skills failing)

CRITIQUE

Again, I am very glad I read this book. It has great ideas that cover a wide range of topics. As a teacher candidate it has also opened my eyes to certain things I should consider in the future.

A negative to this book is that on the cover it does say it is for grades K-12, and there are ideas that can span the entire spectrum from early to senior years education. However, I find that it would be more helpful for early and middle years teachers over senior years. There are sections in the book dedicated to making good looking bulletin boards as well as organization tips for homeroom classes. Both of these things are not seen in senior years normally, so  for strictly senior years teachers there are probably better resource books out there.

At the end of the term, we talked about taking time as a teacher to live a good life, and not just be stressed out and completely immersed in teaching. The second last chapter, noted above in the summary, reminded me of the talks we had in class about ways to not be stressed or how to set proper priorities. I feel this is an important topic, and I have talked with a few teachers at my practicum school who have had to cut out certain commitments such as coaching and could not agree more.

The last chapter, dedicated to resources, is extremely handy. I believe teachers can never have enough resources since the more things you can get from others is the less work you have to do for yourself. To add to that, I also believe that sharing the resources you create is also important.