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Rating: 
Summary: Beyond Classroom Management
Review: Marilyn Watson has written a book relevant to all classrooms, not just "difficult" ones. It is a helpful blend of theory and practice, with Laura Ecken and her classroom serving as a case study. The reader can live with Laura during her two years of transforming her classroom into a caring community of learners. Watson's commentary helps the reader understand not only what works but why it works. I highly recommend this book to all practicing teachers.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Classroom Management
Review: Marilyn Watson has written a book relevant to all classrooms, not just "difficult" ones. It is a helpful blend of theory and practice, with Laura Ecken and her classroom serving as a case study. The reader can live with Laura during her two years of transforming her classroom into a caring community of learners. Watson's commentary helps the reader understand not only what works but why it works. I highly recommend this book to all practicing teachers.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid Narrative of the Development of a Caring Classroom
Review: This book invites us to step inside a dynamically unfolding classroom, come along side a caring professional educator and her supportive mentor, and vicariously share in the joys and struggles of a group of children who will forever be etched in our hearts. The genuine interactions portrayed in the classroom vignettes, demonstrate the potential for all children to grow and develop when led by a teacher like Laura Ecken, the teacher in this book. Her commitment to developing trusting relationships in a caring classroom community is guided and sustained by the professional mentorship of the author, Marilyn Watson. Marilyn, an educational psychologist, assists Laura, and indeed all of us, as we come to understand the needs of children through the lens of attachment theory. Members of the classroom come to life in this vivid narrative account. The thinking, actions and reflections of the teacher are shared in ways that evoke tears of laughter and sorrow. Together, Laura and Marilyn create reachable hopes and dreams for everyone in the learning community. They have given me a powerful resource to use with my new teacher education students at the large, urban, state university where I currently work. The ideals stressed in the work of Dewey, Noddings, Goodlad and others emerge in surprisingly concrete ways. The possibility of creating caring classroom communities where intrinsic motivation is fostered and teaching and learning are facilitated without coercive approaches to management and discipline becomes reachable. The book is powerfully concrete without creating oversimplified recipes. Instead it illuminates the rich complexity of learning and human development and the rich complexities involved in the kind of teaching that meets the challenge to leave no child behind. Finally, I have found a course textbook that meets the needs of my teacher education students, my faculty colleagues, and the in-service teachers with whom we collaborate. e
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