Best Year Ever! Winning Strategies To Thrive In Today's Classroom (Paperback)

~ Bill Cecil (Author)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Best Year Ever! provides teachers with proven classroom management strategies that can turn any classroom into a caring community, complete with high morale, infectious enthusiasm, and increased performance.

This powerful teaching guide gives teachers the needed tools to build a successful team where individuals work together to achieve shared goals while striving for personal best. Instead of wasting precious time and frustration trying to continually put out brush fires in the classroom, teachers will have more time to enjoy what they entered this profession to do. Teach!

Best Year Ever! is broken up into two sections. Section One (Setting the Table For Success) will provide teachers with four key strategies to help build their students into a winning team that will be better prepared to learn. Too often, teachers are pressured to start serving the meal (teach the curriculum) before they have a chance to properly set the table (create a positive, safe learning environment for all students). Bill will show how investing a little time to use these four strategies will pay huge dividends in the classroom the rest of the year cutting down on wasted time, stress, and frustration for teachers and students.

In Section Two of this book, Bill provides a step-by-step playbook for how to create a Best Year Ever! experience for students and teachers alike. This section will include lesson plans and activities to use with the students that will set them up for success. As a bonus, Appendix 2 provides teachers with a thirty day supply of lesson plans to help build their teams, create a productive, safe learning climate, and set a positive tone for the rest of the year.

About the Author

Bill Cecil is a 23-year veteran teacher that was chosen Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2003-2004. Bill believes every teacher is a leader with a team to lead, and he has created a program called Best Year Ever! that provides teachers with a clear vision, blueprint, and proven strategies to create a positive, safe and productive learning environment where individuals strive for personal best while working together to achieve team goals.

Bill has earned a reputation for being a dynamic speaker that provides rousing presentations and workshops on classroom management, team building, and leadership that are relevant, entertaining, and loaded with practical ideas and strategies. Best Year Ever! captures, in print, Bill's enthusiasm, ideas, and passion for teaching.

Bill resides in Mason, Michigan with his wonderful family and continues to teach for the Waverly Community Schools in Lansing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Best Year Ever! Press; 1st edition (February 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977941183
• ISBN-13: 978-0977941186
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,196 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Year Ever - Strategy Harvest!, December 25, 2008

By	Ronald Collins AAPS "Ron" (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a teacher of almost 20 years and a building administrator for 15, I am not easily impressed by books claiming to have "the answer" for school improvement. Bill Cecil's book has impressed me! Bill does not claim to have a script that is guaranteed to transfer to any situation. He takes the time to clearly lay out what has worked for him. His philosophy and organized process of classroom management outlines steps that should help any teacher become more effective. Bill addresses the two key elements in effective teaching and learning; time on task and relationships.
If a teacher invests the time to teach procedures and processes, he or she will eliminate so many time wasters that he will deliver their curriculum smoothly and with less stress for everyone in their learning team. But the key to having "Your Best Year Ever" is found in Bill's philosophy of teaching. His consistent emphasis on Attendance, Attitude and Effort combined with his personal philosophy of "Fun with a purpose!" facilitates the kind of productive relationships necessary for learning to flourish.
Roland Barth in "Learning by Heart" has also identified the key to learning as building a positive, supportive culture within the classroom and school. Barth also calls for fun in learning when he states, "... lurking beneath the culture of most schools is a chilling message: 'Learn or we will hurt you.' Educators have taken learning- a wonderful, spontaneous capacity of all human beings- and coupled it with punitive measures." Bill Cecil lays out strategies caring teachers and caring principals can use to give their students, their colleagues and them selves their "Best Year Ever"!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Bonus" for Student Teachers!, December 22, 2008

By	Susan D. Settle "sue settle" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Bill Cecil contacted our Teacher Preparation program - and are we ever glad that he did!! Bill graciously agreed to do a presentation with our student teachers and this was awesome. The students not only learned so much but came away that evening with a sense of excitement and motivation! Each student teacher received a copy of The Best Year Ever! and the reviews from them have been overwhelmingly positive. Bill's philosophy is so "on target" with what is needed in successful and exciting classrooms and built on what our student teachers already had been exposed to - but in a very personal and practical way. We are looking forward to his presentation next semester with our next cohort of student teachers!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Really Works!, December 21, 2008

By	Leslie J. Nicholas (Kingston, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I recently moved to our middle school after teaching high school for 27 years. I was naturally apprehensive about the move, but my attitude changed after I read "Best Year Ever." I couldn't wait to try the practical methods the author suggested. And now that we've almost reached the halfway point of the school year, I am pleased to report that the strategies Cecil provides really work! I am proud to say I am having my best year ever thanks to this wonderful book. This is a must read for every educator.