Showing titles in Educators

As the middle of five kids growing up in dire poverty, the odds were low on Katriona O'Sullivan making anything of her life. She became a mother at 15 and ended up homeless. Five rackety years followed - barely coping, drinking to escape - until Katriona, now living in her father's native Dublin, hit rock bottom. Poor is the extraordinary story - moving, funny, brave, and sometimes startling - of how Katriona turned her life around.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Penguin Lessons by Tom Michell, read by Bill Nighy. 'I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive because as of that instant he had a name, and with his name came the beginning of a bond which would last a life-time.' Tom Michell is in his roaring 20's: single, free-spirited and seeking adventure.

A third memoir from the author of the huge international best sellers Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt reads his own account of his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years as an English teacher in the public high schools of New York City.

Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world - until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her - a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge.

At 22, Dan Brown came to the Bronx's P.S. 85 as an eager, fresh-faced teacher. Unbeknownst to him, his assigned class, 4-217, was the designated "dumping ground" for all fourth-grade problem cases, and his students would prove to be more challenging than he could ever anticipate. Intent on being a caring, dedicated teacher but confronted with unruly children, absent parents, and a failing administration, Dan was pushed to the limit time and again: he found himself screaming with rage, punching his fist through a blackboard out of sheer frustration, often just wanting to give up and walk away.

Here is the gritty, powerful story of Thomas Sowell's life-long education in the school of hard knocks, a journey that took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.

Best-selling author and teacher Casey Watson shares the horrifying true story of Kiera Bentley, a 12-year-old girl with a deeply shocking secret she's too young to even understand. When Casey first meets Kiera, a small, slight girl who's just lashed out at a fellow pupil in assembly, she immediately senses something's wrong. Something in Kiera's eyes alerts Casey that this is an "old head on young shoulders", and with Kiera's constant tiredness and self-soothing habit of pulling her hair out, she follows her instinct and takes Kiera under her wing.

Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST).

Over her twenty-five-year career, English teacher Carol Atherton has taught generations of students texts that will be familiar to many of us from our own schooldays. But while the staples of exam syllabuses and reading lists remain largely unchanged, their significance – and their relevance - evolves with each class as they encounter them for the first time. Each chapter of Reading Lessons invites us to take a fresh look at these novels, plays and poems, revealing how they have shaped our beliefs, our values, and how we interact as a society.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s experience begins the night he has chosen to embark on a four-year wandering retreat, slipping past the monastery gates. Alone for the first time in his life, he sets out into the unknown. His initial motivation is to step away from his life of privilege and to explore the deepest, most hidden aspects of his being, but what he discovers throughout his retreat - about himself and about the world around us - comes to define his meditation practice and teaching.

Maybe it was a grandparent or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly 20 years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?

A former carer, primary school teacher and education researcher, Matt Lloyd-Rose became a volunteer police officer to try to understand the challenges facing young people in Brixton, the place he lived and taught. He got more than he bargained for. Each Friday evening, he put on the uniform and policed South London: racing through it on blue lights, patrolling its streets, entering a parallel version of a place he thought he knew.

Parents rejoiced to send them back to school, while teachers prepared to face them all again … Five. Days. A. Week! Coming out the other side of the pandemic years, podcast sensations Lee and Adam Parkinson–aka the Two Mr Ps–bring you the most hilarious, ridiculous anecdotes from inside our primary schools. Join in on the classroom antics as they share the unexpected pitfalls of online teaching, all the reasons you need a strong stomach to take on Early Years and why not every household item makes a suitable Harry Potter wand …

A dramatic and remarkable narrative of an extraordinary teacher's determination, from the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers The Tiger's Child and One Child. Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle - three recent arrivals from battle-torn Northern Ireland, badly traumatized by the horrors of war; an eleven-year-old boy, who only knew life inside an institution; an excitable girl, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak.

In 1952, Beryl Gilroy moved from British Guiana to London. Her new life wasn't what she had expected - but her belief in the power of education resulted in a revolutionary career. Inspiring and unflinching, Gilroy's memoir Black Teacher is a rediscovered classic: not only a rare firsthand insight into the Windrush generation but a testament to how one extraordinary woman's dignity, ambition and spirit transcended her era.

From the autumn harvest festival to the summer sports day, the academic year is a non-stop frenzy of planning, preparation and potential chaos, whichever side of the school gates you find yourself. But now Britain’s best-loved teachers and podcast hosts Lee and Adam Parkinson are here to make it all that little bit easier as they share the hilarious trials, tribulations and tomfoolery going on inside our primary schools.

Before Jeffrey Boakye was a Black teacher, he was a Black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only Black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye’s is a journey of exploration—from the outside looking in. In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system.

His name was Kevin but his keepers called him Zoo Boy. He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16. Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked.

Have you ever wondered what really happens during the day when your precious little angels are at school? In this book, the Two Mr Ps take you on a side-splittingly funny journey through the weird and wonderful world of primary schools. They also explore the pressures of modern-day teaching, revealing exactly what it takes to wrangle a chaotic classroom (or seven) on a weekly basis. From the absolute characters found in the staffroom to school-trip mishaps and everything else in between, Put a Wet Paper Towel on It is a must-hear for teachers and parents alike.

Kate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career. Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school 'Inclusion Unit', trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heartbreaking brilliance.