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Product reviews for Oops!
Geraint Wilton St Ives School - A Technology College & Lead Practitioner
“You won't need the bookmark!”
Hywel Roberts' book is not just a positive thinking manual, though it will make you more positive about what you do. It isn't just one of those resource banks; but you will leave it buzzing with ideas. Most of all it isn't just a book about classroom strategies though you will find yourself doing some strategic thinking. It is a book full of honesty, full of a deeply thought out perspective on what teaching and most of all learning should be like.
My copy came with a thoughtfully provided bookmark but you won't need it. This is a one sitting read but once you have galloped through you will want to go back again and again to reflect, check and think through what the author has to say. Roberts starts from the uncompromising expectation that we can all be better teachers but his optimism is grounded in his own experiences in the classroom and in working with other teachers. The writing is pervaded by a sense of realism; these are not theories, they are well thought out practice.
The book is structured as a series of chapters, each full of ideas, anecdotes, thinking lists, diagrams and shocks. Usefully the page layout leaves plenty of room for you to write your own notes and doodles. The overall impression is of a long, cool, refreshing energy drink in the parched and dusty world of educational statistics, government policy and OFSTED. However this is by no means a soft touch of a book, Roberts starts from the premise that teachers are people and so are their pupils. That learning is absorbing when it is going well and that it is your task as a teacher to make sure that it does go well.
No doubt you will pick up some practical strategies and ideas from this book but much more than that, it will make you think. About why you are a teacher, about what you teach, about who you are teaching and most of all about how you will tap into the sort of learning that makes your class say things like, “Is that lesson over already?” and mean it. It will give you permission to find the sort of teaching that you want to be doing and for your pupils to find the sort of learning they want to be doing. A challenge to all of us but also a validation for all the really good things we do, especially the ones that we know are right but don't quite fit the scheme of work.
As I read this book I started a mental list of all the people I wanted to share it with, colleagues, trainee teachers, and friends. Most of all I wanted to share it with a young teacher who had a clear vision of the sort of teacher he wanted to be but could not find out how to get there. This book could be the answer.
Hywel Roberts' book is not just a positive thinking manual, though it will make you more positive about what you do. It isn't just one of those resource banks; but you will leave it buzzing with ideas. Most of all it isn't just a book about classroom strategies though you will find yourself doing some strategic thinking. It is a book full of honesty, full of a deeply thought out perspective on what teaching and most of all learning should be like.
My copy came with a thoughtfully provided bookmark but you won't need it. This is a one sitting read but once you have galloped through you will want to go back again and again to reflect, check and think through what the author has to say. Roberts starts from the uncompromising expectation that we can all be better teachers but his optimism is grounded in his own experiences in the classroom and in working with other teachers. The writing is pervaded by a sense of realism; these are not theories, they are well thought out practice.
The book is structured as a series of chapters, each full of ideas, anecdotes, thinking lists, diagrams and shocks. Usefully the page layout leaves plenty of room for you to write your own notes and doodles. The overall impression is of a long, cool, refreshing energy drink in the parched and dusty world of educational statistics, government policy and OFSTED. However this is by no means a soft touch of a book, Roberts starts from the premise that teachers are people and so are their pupils. That learning is absorbing when it is going well and that it is your task as a teacher to make sure that it does go well.
No doubt you will pick up some practical strategies and ideas from this book but much more than that, it will make you think. About why you are a teacher, about what you teach, about who you are teaching and most of all about how you will tap into the sort of learning that makes your class say things like, “Is that lesson over already?” and mean it. It will give you permission to find the sort of teaching that you want to be doing and for your pupils to find the sort of learning they want to be doing. A challenge to all of us but also a validation for all the really good things we do, especially the ones that we know are right but don't quite fit the scheme of work.
As I read this book I started a mental list of all the people I wanted to share it with, colleagues, trainee teachers, and friends. Most of all I wanted to share it with a young teacher who had a clear vision of the sort of teacher he wanted to be but could not find out how to get there. This book could be the answer.
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19/07/2012 01:00
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