Customer Reviews

1000 Best New Teacher Survival Secrets

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I received this book as a gift. I highly enjoyed it. It was simple to read: tons of short quotes broken down into chapters by category. I read it in five days. It is great for new teachers--words of wisdom from those that are already in the field. The information is general, but practical. It was useful to read of alternate solutions to problems I had come across in my first year of teaching. Adding to your repertoire of classroom tidbits can only a good thing!

the way this book is formatted lends itself to random flipping, rather than a front to back read. i love these types of books, and like one of the other reviewers i could see this being useful if you have a situation arise in class and you want altrernative perspectives... open the book and you might get a few chunks to think about. on the other hand, if you communicate with other teachers in your school, they will also give you different perspectives... with two-way communication! if you really need to read rather than talk about your situation, i would be inclined to look online and search specifically, rather than use this book.

which brings me to why i gave it 2 stars only... i found the suggestions to be overall very weak, because they were either obvious or unappealing. in fact, many of them made me cringe a bit out of an honest gut reaction (i feel harsh saying that, but it really happened).

personally, i would recommend to avoid this book, but i do recognize the value in the format... perhaps getting a copy from a library would help you decide if you like the style/suggestions or not, and buy it based om that, because this format is always good for rereading and "coffee table reading".

I really can't review the books. they were given as a gift. They were books wanted by the recipient.

I gave this as a gift to a friend of mine that had just recieved her teaching certification. She loves it.

The ideas in this book are neither "secrets," as the title suggests, not anything short of obvious.

I suppose if you were a Wal-Mart cashier, and a local school administrator rushed in to your store and, out of desperation, begged you to teach a class in his secondary school, this would be a great book for you to read. But if you're at all inclined toward teaching, this thing is damn-near worthless, because everything in it is OBVIOUS. Example: "Don't assume that your students know how to use study skills." Ooooh!

Any teacher with a modicum of intelligence and a college degree should be able to intuit ALL of the suggestions in this book.

Furthermore, this book is ONLY written for elementary and secondary school teachers, NOT college-level. As a previous reviewer said, there are many suggestions in this book that made me cringe when I read them; just really schlocky ideas, or great time-wasters, or touchy-feely "never hurt a student's self-esteem even if it means that his/her ignorance will be enabled for a lifetime"-type nonsense, etc. Ok, that's a paraphrase, but you get my point. This book serves up heaps of the disturbingly trendy "self-esteem building" approach that has DESTROYED American public education. It tries to persuade you to baby your students until they're just useless piles of self-absorbed mush. They should have added a 1001st "secret": "try to bake your students warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies EVERY day, and then do their homework for them, while intermittently taking a break for a group hug and self-affirmation session."

So, if you're totally CLUELESS and stupid, this book is for you! It's filled with ideas you'd never think of!

Great ideas! Have used several of the techniques in my youth group at church with success.