Never Work Harder Than Your Students

By Robyn R. Jackson

Booktalk

“I think every teacher has that moment when, at the end of the day, they look up exhausted from a long day of teaching to see the students running, skipping, and jumping out of the classroom and think, ‘This isn’t fair.’ And it isn’t. Not to the teacher and more importantly, not to the kids. Learning takes work. If the teacher is doing all the work, the kids cannot learn as well as they should be learning. That’s why master teachers never work harder than their students.” (172).

Unlike so many books that are available on the market for teacher’s today, books that are filled with magical strategies that will change your classroom forever, Never Work Harder Than Your Students doesn’t give a list of strategies; instead it focuses on helping teachers change their mindsets towards their students, their own teaching, and the classroom as a whole. The mental shift occurs through the practice of determining what exactly is YOUR work and what work belongs in the hands of your students. Further, it provides great detail about how to mesh these two sets of priorities, so that classrooms becomes places of engaged learning and not just daily compounded frustration. The principles discussed in this book include:

· Start where your students are

· Know where your students are going

· Expect your students to get there

· Support your students

· Use feedback effectively

· Focus on quality, not quantity.

Finally, the appendix of this book provides some wonderful resources that teachers are encouraged to use when putting these principles into action in their own classrooms. These tools include a:

· Action Plan Guide to becoming a Master Teacher

· Master Teacher Reflection Tool

· Problem Solving Tool

· Student Intervention Cycle Tool

· Guidelines to forming effective student study groups