The Art of Teaching

Just in time for the new school year, here are several new books by and about teachers:

BLACKBOARD: A Personal History of the Classroom by Lewis Buzbee
“From the perspective of former student, teacher, and parent, Buzbee offers a keen look at the politics, economics, and sociology of how school has evolved and the history of school developments from textbooks to writing tools to blackboards, interspersed with his own visceral memories of nap time in kindergarten and learning to read and calculate. This is a loving and probing look at the social and emotional meaning of school.” — Booklist

WHY TEACH?: In Defense of a Real Education by Mark Edmundson
Now in paperback. Edmundson, a renowned professor of English at the University of Virginia argues forcefully that the liberal arts are more important today than ever. “A heartfelt, beautifully written, profound, and often hilarious appeal to rage against the machinery of modern education.” — Booklist, starred review

GETTING SCHOOLED: The Reeducation of an American Teacher by Garret Keizer
Keizer’s memoir “packed with humor, pathos and valued insights” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of his return to teach at the same rural Vermont high school where he taught fourteen years ago is “a sympathetic portrait of a school, a searing indictment of a culture that uses working-class children as cannon fodder, and, unexpectedly, a page-turner.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

HOPE AGAINST HOPE: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America’s Children by Sarah Carr
Now in paperback. In this “detailed and thoughtful” (Kirkus Reviews) narrative nonfiction debut, education reporter Carr examines education in twenty-first-century America through the lens of a teenage student, a charter school teacher, and a public high school principal in post-Katrina New Orleans.