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In Praise of Foibles

The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools

By: Ron Nash, Shane Safir

Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781943920570
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2023
Page Count: 120
Publication date: August 03, 2023

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Description

Classrooms should be inviting and safe places where students can strive to achieve worthwhile goals, even as they learn that the road to improvement is not always paved. This deceptively simple guiding principle is what Ron Nash has spent four decades in education pursuing and refining. In Praise of Foibles: The Impact of Mistakes, Failure, and Fear on Continuous Improvement in Schools is the guide every teacher who has ever wanted to take a chance on improvement needs to read.

Learn the research-based techniques and best practices that enable you to:

Establish an environment of safety instead of fear
Encourage risk-taking and resilience
Set high expectations and achieve high engagement
Let go of control and watch your students flourish

Author Ron Nash returns with his inimitable writing style and disarming honesty to show how every teacher can transform their classroom into what students need to be successful in the 21st century.

Author(s)

Ron Nash

Shane Safir

Shane Safir has worked at every level of the education system for the past 25 years, with an unwavering commitment to racial justice and deep learning. After teaching in San Francisco and Oakland, California and engaging in community organizing to launch a new public high school, Shane became the founding principal of June Jordan School for Equity (JJSE), an innovative national model identified by scholar and policy leader Linda Darling-Hammond as having “beaten the odds in supporting the success of low-income students of color.” For over a decade, Shane has provided equity-centered leadership coaching, systems transformation support, and professional learning for schools, districts, and organizations across the U.S. and Canada. She writes for Edutopia, Ed Week, Educational Leadership magazine and is the author of The Listening Leader: Creating the Conditions for Equitable School Transformation (Jossey-Bass: 2017). Shane is thrilled to co-author this book with Dr. Jamila Dugan, a long-time collaborator who conducted foundational research for The Listening Leader and facilitates equity workshops with Shane, as well as Carrie Wilson, a colleague whose groundbreaking program for teacher-driven inquiry centers street data in the pursuit of equity.

Table of Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Prologue: Fail Forward

Things That Go Bump in the Road

Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor Pain

Just Start Writing

Easy Doesn't Do It

The Gift of Letting Them Figure Things Out

1. All They Have to Fear

The Fear Factor

Beyond The Classroom

A Foundation of Trust and Respect

The Frazzle Factor

Safety First

The Do Your Own Work Syndrome

The Peers Have It

The Learning Zone

Moving Forward

2. You Call That a Mistake?

The Great Toilet Paper Miscue

A Little Empath, Please

Mistakes Are Inevitable . . . and Profitable

Find Another Lens (or Two)

Failure and the Creative Process

Moving Forward

3. Something Borrowed, Something New

Four Lenses

There Is Always Right Now

What Students Want

A Glass Filled to Overflowing

Listen More; Talk Less

Only One Way to Find Out

Moving Forward

4. Feedback and the Modeling of Listening Skills

Sources of Feedback

Working the Room

Model Listening Skills

The Purposeful Pause

Paraphrasing for Clarification

Make Praise Useful and Authentic

Moving Forward

5. I Used to Think . . .

Sustaining the Status Quo

Speaking of Thinking

Writing is Thinking

Work the Room

Moving Forward

6. Take Care of the Kids; They'll Take Care of the Tests

Win-Win Classrooms

Culture as an Accelerator

How We Do Things Here

Cultures Designed for Comfort and Learning

Dump the Excuses

No Excuses Here

Moving Forward

7. Build Improvement Systems to Last

Toxic Cultures

The Why, Not the Who

The Value of Why

Seek Feedback and Use It

Concentrate on Root Causes, Not Symptoms

Let Faculty Meetings Meet Their Maker

"What Are You Going to Do About That?"

The Beat Goes On

Offline and Onsite

From Congenial to Collegial

Don't Blame the People; Fix the System

Fail Quickly, Fail Forward, and Keep Running

Move Forward

Epilogue: The Far Turn

References

Other Titles in: Student Engagement & Motivation | Teaching Strategies for Diverse Students | Learning Styles

Available As:

Review Copies

This book is not available as a review copy.