Friday, May 7, 2010

April Bookends

April was one of those rare months where I received a book and managed to read it before the month was over. Unlike most books, Russell Smith's Girl Crazy wasn't sent to my office for "aging" but somehow found it's way directly into my hands and proved to be a fun and thought-provoking read.

April will mostly be noted for the arrival of several work-related books, like Teach Like A Champion. It's author, Doug Lemov, has a sense of optimism about his analysis of the teaching profession that Jack Frymier clearly doesn't have, as his book Changing the School Learning Environment, is subtitled "Where do we stand after decades of reform?" (short answer, not that much further than when we started). I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am by the title of Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improving Instruction. It's like winning the buzzword bingo.

Books Read
Mickey Leigh (with Legs McNeil), I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir (2009)
Russell Smith, Girl Crazy (2010)

Currently Reading
Ben Moor, More Trees to Climb (2010)
Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature (2006)
Doug Lemov, Teach Like A Champion (2010)

Books Acquired
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, Driven by Data: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction (2010)
Doug Lemov, Teach Like A Champion (2010)
Jack Frymier, Changing the School Learning Environment (2004)
Russell Smith, Girl Crazy (2010)