From My Classroom to Yours

From My Classroom to Yours
James Rourke
Rowman & Littlefield Education
ISBN: 1-57886-604-9
Non-Fiction, Education
Reviewed by Dr. Tami Brady

Student and teacher alike, the school year follows a predictable cycle. Refreshed by summer vacation, we head back to school with high hopes. This year will be different. Students are committed to actually finishing their homework. Teachers are sure that the new motivational poster they just hung in the classroom will make all the difference. For a time, both student and teacher seem to try but soon frustration sets in. Quickly enough, both student and teacher realize that this year is going to be just like the rest.
Times may have changed but the predictable behavior of students and teachers hasn’t. In every classroom, there are the students who are going to succeed in academics and those who’ll be left hating the experience. It’s not that the unsuccessful children are unteachable and it’s not that teachers don’t care. On the contrary, both suffer from the same problem: frustration over lack of success and connection in the past.
From My Classroom to Yours encourages teachers to move beyond the unproductive cycle that infests the current educational system to become that teacher who doesn’t give up on that troubled student. His intended goal is that teachers aim to become that teacher that everyone remembers. That teacher who actually made a difference is someone’s life. I agree, we need far more teachers who are willing to care and who truly want to change a child’s world despite the many obstacles.