Excerpt from “The Year of My Fourth Dimension” by Kathy Yocum

Teaching physics was no longer my only job. I had to become a voracious reader of science material. I couldn’t read deeply; I had to read broadly and quickly. Before school began, I, thankfully, finished Joy Hakim’s The Story of Science: Newton at the Center. Her work is a great read with short science vignettes carrying us through science discoveries over time and loaded with lots of interesting asides. Once I began working with Sam and Charlie, I immediately ordered the other two books in her series. My home was my homework center. In the evenings, I’d scan several science websites. Stephen Hawking sometimes joined Hakim’s work and Bill Bryson’s, A Short History of Nearly Everything. Theirs were words that took me to dreamland. I didn’t have to know everything, but these boys wanted to talk about a variety of science topics. They were amazing.

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Kathy Yocum teaches at Natchitoches Central High School in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Excerpt of “Reflections of an ‘Easy Grader’” by Joel Shatzky

Although in the past, at least when I was growing up in the 1950s, there was a rough balance between the objectives of education being “learning for its own sake” and “getting a job,” the former is rarely mentioned nearly as much today as the latter. When President Obama talks about education, he urges that our country step up to the challenges of “global competition” even though a lot of the “globe” is dominated by multi-national corporations based in the U.S. and the “competition” that these corporations are engaged in is to find ways of employing high-skilled workers at lower wages. This is certainly to the detriment of students who believe a college degree will give them a good-paying job. Thus, one of the initial objectives of such educators as John Dewey, to improve the education system in order to have an “informed electorate” is being downplayed in the interest of “skilling” rather than educating young learners.

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Joel Shatzky is a retired college professor who still teaches English by working as an adjunct at Kingsborough Community College (CUNY). Shatzky contributes a regular column, “Educating for Democracy,” to the Huffington Post.

Manuscript Delivered

The manuscript of What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms has been delivered to Rogue Faculty Press. We are on schedule for our April publication date. The book ended up being about 235 pages. It will ultimately be available as a traditional trade paperback and an e-book. RFP is doing a great job. Stay tuned for more updates and excerpts.

Preview of "Teaching Spanish and Learning Latino" by Amanda Marek

The second in our series of excerpts of the stories in What Teaching Means followed by an abbreviated version of the writer’s biography. You can expect more great writing like this when we publish in April of 2012.

From Teaching Spanish and Learning Latino by Amanda Marek

By working with them, asking questions, and earning their trust and therefore honesty, I learned so much about how their cultures functioned as a subculture in Minnesota. I saw how they had adapted their Mexican, Guatemalan, and Salvadorian cultures to a general Latino culture, and how they further adapted it to mesh with what Minnesota demanded of them. And I too became part of this culturally mish-mashed community.

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Amanda Marek teaches ninth grade English and Spanish for native speakers in Shakopee, Minnesota.

Preview of "The Escape Artist" by Alicia McCauley

The first in our series of excerpts of the stories in What Teaching Means followed by an abbreviated version of the writer's biography. You can expect more great writing like this when we publish in April of 2012.

From The Escape Artist by Alicia McCauley

“I often wonder what became of Brian. At night, between the hazy edges of dreams, I glimpse his face amongst other children who have come and gone too quickly. I regret not seeing beyond his eager smile and bright eyes. I regret not hearing Brian’s real stories, the ones that were too hard to tell.”

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Alicia McCauley earned an AA in Early Childhood Education from Shasta College, followed by a B.A. in liberal arts and a teaching credential from Simpson University. She teaches first grade at Boulder Creek School in Redding, California.

What Teaching Means Previews

Well, the manuscript production process is well underway and still on schedule. We have placed the 39 stories into six sections. Copy editing is ongoing. This continues to be an inspring and gratifying process. Again, we can't thank these writers enough for sharing their stories.

We have received word that Linda Christensen of Rethinking Schools and the Oregon Writing Project, Dr. Margaret Latta of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Dr. George White of Lehigh University will review the book for us.

Jeff Lacey of Rogue Faculty Press is currently working on scheduling author events for late spring and early summer of 2012 in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oregon.

Starting later today, we are going to start posting (on this blog and the Rogue Faculty Press Facebook page) the professional biographies and short excerpts from the writing of the teachers included in the Spring 2012 Rogue Faculty Press publication, What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms.

Stay tuned...

Publicity for What Teaching Means

Work is continuing on What Teaching Means. A few authors are working with editors to finalize their pieces. Contracts are going out. And, finally, we are starting to make plans for a promotional tour for the book in late spring and early summer 2012. We'd like to visit some of the 17 states represented by the authors in the book. We'd love to visit bookstores, coffee shops, and so on. Anywhere that will support teachers and the art of teachers. We would be especially interested in events in Nebraska (of course), Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oregon since a few teachers from each of those states are included in the book. Any ideas?

Our Work Has Begun

Thanks to 85 teachers in 27 states who submitted their teaching stories for What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms. It was a great pleasure to read all these stories. We have now chosen the 39 essays that will be published in April of 2012 by Rogue Faculty Press. Check in here for updates about our progress.