This award-winning teacher and blogger knows how to get the best from her students, but often she is the one learning life lessons from her students. Through inspiring and humorous anecdotes, the author chronicles nearly 15 years of publications advising and the students who crossed her path.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Funny and tender, but don't let the title or sweet vignettes fool you. Carol's book is stuffed with shrewd insights on the American high school experience. It's The Insider meets Blackboard Jungle by way of Goodbye Mr. Chips. --Bobby Hawthorne, scholastic media guru and author of The Radical Write
If they ever make a sit-com about a high school newspaper, then cast Carol Richtsmeier as the adviser. She's everything the role requires--smart, demanding, big-hearted, crusty and endlessly hilarious. (How many advisers do you know consider a rubber chicken an indispensible teaching tool?) For the past two years, Carol has channeled her irreverent wit into her blog, My Bellringers. Now, with this all new collection of classroom stories, readers will get to fully lose themselves in Carol's world, slightly askew but always steeped in the wisdom earned from 24 years in one of education's most challenging roles. -- --Nancy Kruh, columnist, The Dallas Morning News
Carol is an ex-news reporter and now a teacher in Texas, and her educational experiences seem to be just so different from those of teachers I speak to over here. She teaches journalism and photojournalism and much of her thoughtful, funny and poignant book is about her students (although she does include some hilarious asides and advice, and manages to damn English teachers for their ridiculously high rate of moaning). The fantastic thing about Carol is that she really can write, and her book is a great, easy read, with lots of anecdotes. It's funny and moving, and wonderful to read about Carol defending her students to the hilt. However, don't think she's a pushover, as she certainly isn't. She's also rather opinionated (don't get her started on students who don't pull their weight, jobs she doesn't think teachers should have to do or standardised tests). Having garnered most of my knowledge of American high schools from the movies, this made me think again. It also made me almost wish I'd gone to an American school myself. --Sarah Ebner, from the London Times' SchoolGate,
If they ever make a sit-com about a high school newspaper, then cast Carol Richtsmeier as the adviser. She's everything the role requires--smart, demanding, big-hearted, crusty and endlessly hilarious. (How many advisers do you know consider a rubber chicken an indispensible teaching tool?) For the past two years, Carol has channeled her irreverent wit into her blog, My Bellringers. Now, with this all new collection of classroom stories, readers will get to fully lose themselves in Carol's world, slightly askew but always steeped in the wisdom earned from 24 years in one of education's most challenging roles. -- --Nancy Kruh, columnist, The Dallas Morning News
Carol is an ex-news reporter and now a teacher in Texas, and her educational experiences seem to be just so different from those of teachers I speak to over here. She teaches journalism and photojournalism and much of her thoughtful, funny and poignant book is about her students (although she does include some hilarious asides and advice, and manages to damn English teachers for their ridiculously high rate of moaning). The fantastic thing about Carol is that she really can write, and her book is a great, easy read, with lots of anecdotes. It's funny and moving, and wonderful to read about Carol defending her students to the hilt. However, don't think she's a pushover, as she certainly isn't. She's also rather opinionated (don't get her started on students who don't pull their weight, jobs she doesn't think teachers should have to do or standardised tests). Having garnered most of my knowledge of American high schools from the movies, this made me think again. It also made me almost wish I'd gone to an American school myself. --Sarah Ebner, from the London Times' SchoolGate,
About the Author
Carol Richtsmeier, called Richie by her students, currently teaches at a public high school located just south of Dallas where she advises both the school newspaper and yearbook while she waits to be discovered by Oprah. She also is a free-lance writer and journalism workshop instructor. Prior to teaching, she was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News. In 2005, she received the Courage in Student Journalism Award from the national Newseum, Student Press Law Center and National Scholastic Press Association. She was the first teacher to ever receive this award. In 2002, she was named the Texas state journalism Teacher of the Year. She also was named a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Recognized Adviser in 2002, and recently, she was named one of four national 2009 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Distinguished Advisers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be a Big Fat Stupid Head!,
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This review is from: How to Lose Your Self of Steam & Other Teaching Lessons I Never Learned From Professional Development (Hardcover)
This book was great, and you should definitely go straight to Amazon and order yourself a copy right now! Richie has put her sense of humor right out on display, and her stories about her Journalism students are fun, funny, and memorable.First a word about the look of the book. My first thought was that it looked like a yearbook -- fitting, since Richie's class is in charge of putting the yearbook together each year. My fiance thought it looked like a composition notebook -- still fitting, as I'm sure the kids have gone through a ton of those writing assignments and reports. Either way, the look of the book is unique and really stands out on a shelf. Something else that I really enjoyed was the little "inserts" on several pages, especially the "Chapter Terms." These small colored bubbles defined words and phrases used within the text -- including a dictionary-worthy definition and a tongue-in-cheek meaning. One of my favorites -- "In-service -- 1) another name for a professional development day. 2) another name for wasting a teacher's time." These inserts made me think of another of my favorite books, America, by John Stewart and the Daily Show. The vignettes, everything from a young talented artist who didn't want to give up his black fingernail polish, to the kids who caught the porn JUST before it made it into the yearbook, are touching, and show how much Richie cares about the kids who have been in her classes over the year. Check out How to Lose Your Self of Steam, and see what all the fuss is regarding Big Fat Stupid Heads, heads in freezers, and rubber chickens.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy This Book or the Chicken Gets It!,
By
This review is from: How to Lose Your Self of Steam & Other Teaching Lessons I Never Learned From Professional Development (Hardcover)
This book is full of laughs and insight into what it takes to be a journalism teacher in a high school. From Richie's Yoda-like pep talks to threats of putting students' heads in the freezer to her students frolicking in hotel fountains with bubbles, every vignette has a point and insight into teaching. Richie may be the teacher, but some of the most valuable lessons she learned from the most talented and amusing students.Buy this book!
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