Reading For Treasure: Hey, Educators! Read This!

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

While I was teaching, my colleagues and I would send articles to each other about things related to parts of our personal and professional lives. When I retired, I continued to find these reading gems (call them treasures), but I didn’t want to be that voice from beyond that keeps assigning busy working folks more things to read! That is one of the reasons I started posting Reading for Treasure. 

Yet, I’ve been finding wonderful things I want to send my friends who are still in the classroom. Some of them are for a broad educational audience and some are extremely narrow. I have lost track of the number of times a week (or a day) that I think to myself, “Oh! I know what I would do with that in the classroom!” So here are a few pieces of summer reading about education for anyone interested! 

KQED Mindshift shared an article reprinted from Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education that expresses one of my core teaching tenets: every student should feel that they are the teacher’s secret favorite. Teachers, please read this. New and pre-service teachers, you must read this!  “How Unconditional Positive Regard Can Help Students Feel Cared For”

KQED Mindshift also republished an NPR article titled,  “Colorado Becomes 1st State To Ban Legacy College Admissions.” When we discuss affirmative action, can we also discuss legacy admissions, elite sports, and other ways that the college admission game is not based on students’ merit and is rigged in favor of affluent mostly white students? One of the pandemic side effects has been this kind of shaking up of college admissions! 

Speaking of ways that affluent, usually white, students get advantages in education, can we talk about private education? The Atlantic’s cover makes the statement, “Private Schools are Indefensible.” This highly detailed and very powerful piece argues that private schools not only give students a leg up, but they also have a detrimental effect on everyone! The actual title of the article is “Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene.” 

This past year was not easy for teachers, students, parents, or anyone connected to schools (or anyone in general). So the argument that many classrooms were only just getting by before schools closed feels harsh. However, the pandemic pushed these teetering teachers over the edge. Jennifer Gonzales, writing in Cult of Pedagogy, asks teachers not to hit the “easy button.” “No More Easy Button: A Suggested Approach to Post-Pandemic Teaching” makes highly specific recommendations about what school should look like next year. I would argue that Ms. Gonzales’ suggestions are just what school should look like – always. 

I love Math With Bad Drawings. If you haven’t looked at that blog, please do. It is magnificent. In this satiric entry, “Kafka Explains Math Education,” Ben Orlin is specifically talking about math education but his points apply to many (if not all) subject areas. He even uses real Kafka quotes!   

American Lit teachers, look at this! A new book takes a magical new look at The Great Gatsby. It focuses on Jordan Baker, who in this telling is a Vietnamese adoptee who was raised by a wealthy white woman. She is also queer! Read the review from Tor.com:  “A Greater Gatsby: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo”

I am currently reading Think Again by Adam Grant