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MOTIVATING AND INSPIRING TEACHERS:: The Educational Leader's Guide for Building Staff Morale

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For principals, teachers, team leaders, and all other educators, this book will help revitalize and re-energize your school. It is filled with strategies to motivate and stimulate all those involved in education. Included in this book are simple suggestions which you can integrate into your current daily routines. This book will show you how to:

- insert key phrases and specific actions into your day-to-day conversations, staff meetings, and written memos to stimulate peak effectiveness.

- hire new staff and plan orientation & induction meetings to cultivate and retain loyal and motivated staff members.

- use the "gift of time" to stimulate and reward.

- get amazing results by not taking credit for them

- motivate yourself each and every day.

Author Todd Whitaker, a former middle and high school principal, is currently Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Indiana State University. He is the author of Dealing with Difficult Teachers and co-author of Dealing with Difficult Parents (and with Parents in Difficult Situations). He has keynoted state, national, and international conferences and is a highly sought presenter for teachers and principals. Dr. Beth Whitaker, currently an Assistant Professor at Indiana State University was the principal at an elementary school which received the National Blue Ribbon Award for School Excellence. With her husband, Todd, she is co-editor of Contemporary Education. Dr. Dale Lumpa, currently an elementary school principal, serves as on the board of directors of the Colorado Principal's Center and is an adjunct professor for the University of Phoenix.

This book is full of ideas that I have either currently implemented into my administrative plan or will implement next year. Many of these ideas were simple, easy-to-use, common sense ideas that I wish I would have found earlier in my administrative career. The bottom line is that if you don't have motivated teachers, you most likely don't have a "good" school - this book will help you motivate your teachers and create a positive environment.

Now in an updated second edition with four new chapters ("Teaching Leaders", "Sharpening Your Focus", "Showing Off Your School" and "Feeling Better Through Fitness and Wellness"), Motivating & Inspiring Teachers: The Education Leader's Guide for Building Staff Morale is a guide written by experts, for professionals, to share tools and resources ideal for boosting and maintaining staff morale. From how to find above-average teachers for one's staff, to getting teachers involved, to building a shared vision, being judicious about one's use of criticism, and nonverbal factors that can affect one's communication, Motivating & Inspiring Teachers is a solid, down-to-earth guide offering invaluable advice in plain terms. "Schools can access technology, billboards, newspapers, welcome packets, and many other avenues to communicate to parents and the community. Asking parents, visiting with local businesses, and reading advertisements in newspapers are a few ways to get ideas for showing off your school. Seeing how businesses in the private sector advertise can be very informative because their financial success depends on 'showing off their businesses.'" A must-have for educational leaders everywhere.

Todd Whitaker is one of my favorite educational speakers. His advise is timly and usable. The book is good and very enjoyable.

If I were a high school principal, I would find this book extraordinarily creative and helpful. I have spoken to old high school principals and teachers about this book because it gives practical ideas to motivate teachers and students alike. It makes me hope that all principals will read this book for the shear fact that I want to see teachers more motivated and excited about their jobs. I will someday be a parent and would like to know my children are learning from the best.