A veteran teacher offers a no-nonsense look at the state of public high school education today.
Part advice manual and part memoir, Chalked! takes you on a thought-provoking and personal tour of an American public high school through the eyes of a long-tenured teacher. Over the course of a full school year, you'll have a ringside seat to the high points, low points, frustrations, struggles, and the hopes, fears, and dreams of the nearly three thousand teenagers, two hundred faculty members, and eight administrators who make a public high school their home for the better part of each weekday.
Along the way, you'll learn the answers to more than fifty of the most pressing questions in public education today, including:
- How can student disruptions be successfully managed?
- What is the best way toward a productive parent-teacher meeting?
- How can teachers survive and thrive during administrative classroom observations?
- Does data collection help to increase student achievement?
- Is pursuing a doctorate of education worth the time and money?
- How much preparation is necessary before teaching a new class?
- What are the consequences of students' constant use of technology?
- How can two teachers get along in a shared classroom?
- Should teachers willingly hand over their course materials to a colleague?
- Will human teachers eventually be replaced by computers?
- What is the key to sustaining long-term employment as a teacher?
And, most importantly:
- What do seasoned teachers wish they had known at the start of their careers?
Chalked! is chock-full of rich observations and telling anecdotes of the many intersecting lives in a contemporary high school. Whether you're a rookie with only days of teaching experience under your belt, or a veteran finishing out your last school year, your teaching practice will be greatly enhanced by reading, thinking about, and discussing the timely issues raised by Chalked!
