Making a Difference Developing Meaningful Careers in Education [Paperback]

Our culture and media often simplify the choice educators face-stay in or leave classroom teaching. Written for teachers and other educational professionals, this book dispels this simple dichotomy by representing the range of responses and career pathways that enable educators to make a difference. Based on interviews with hundreds of change-minded educators, the authors share career stories and insights against a backdrop that maps out the complexities, roles, and structures that define professional advancement in education. All of the teachers in this book have taught in challenging urban contexts, fought hard to exercise their professional autonomy and responsibility to serve students well, navigated social networks of educators, friends, and family who buoy or dampen their reform spirit, and remain committed to changing society through schooling. Their stories are as instructive as they are inspiring and offer roadmaps for the current generation of change-minded educators.Series Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1Making a Difference is an easy-to-read book that gets at much of the complexity of what it means to stay in or leave teaching. This book makes it clear that this kind of simple distinction will no longer work to answer the most troubling  and the most important  questions related to teacher career trajectories. This book will make a significant contribution to the literature.
Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Lynch School of Education, Boston College


*Praise for The Teachers Toolkit*

Books about teaching seldom combine theory, research, practice, and inspiration, but that is precisely what The Teachers Toolkit series does. Seasoned educators and researchers explore the profession of teaching through social justice and efficacy. University faculty, their students, and new teachers will cherish these books, while veteran teachers will develop new insights from them.
Sonia Nieto, Univelã'