Professional Readings
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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
June 2006 Summer Reading
These are some personal favorites of the Principal’s Office editorial board members.
Stabile, Robert G. Ph.D. (2006) Teach your way to wealth. Powerhouse Press, L.L.C. 5247 Wilson Mills Rd. #122. Cleveland, OH 44143.
This is a must-read for all educators who are interested in maximizing their earnings over the span of their career. Written by a fellow educator from humble beginnings, he is a testament to how one can become very comfortable on an educator’s salary. I only wish I had read this book 20 years ago. Even so, there is solid financial information for the younger educator to maximize earnings and investments, and for older workers and retirees to salvage and improve their financial investments and opportunities. As the author notes, “wealth snowballs!”
Some of his practical insights include:
- You can be young, live an intelligent financial life and build financial security or you can be old and live frugally. Probably, on an educator’s salary, you must pick one.
- I believe the opportunities provided by education in our schools made my good life possible.
- To my colleagues in the field of education, teach your way to wealth. Oh yes, you can!
One colleague suggested that this would be a great book to give to staff members, particularly younger educators to encourage them to stay in the field of education by understanding the financial advantages to those in education.
Despite a few editorial glitches in this book, it will make a wealth of difference in your financial life if you follow its practical wisdom.
Diana Williams, Editor
The book I’m suggesting for summer (or anytime) reading is Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman (Harper, 2004): Little by little, a person here and a person there turn a junk-heap patch of urban space into a blooming green vegetable garden and the strangers become a community in the process. This provides fresh thinking about community building. A moving, hopeful, and inspiring tale!
Dr. Helen Marks
Patillo-Beals, M. (1994). Warriors don’t cry: A searing
memoir of the battle to integrate Little Rock’s Central High. New York: Pocket Books.
This book provides a searing commentary of the race relations
in the United States following the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas (1954) decision as seen through the eyes of Melba Patillo-Beals,
one of the students famously referred to as the “Little Rock Nine.” The
imagery of Melba’s experiences as a high school student, who bravely
navigates the corridors of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
is unforgettable. This is a heart-wrenching and riveting account of her
struggles and an optimistic look toward the future of public schools.
Heather M. Bandeen, Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University
Spillane, James P. (2006). Distributed Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Several principals recommended the book to the staff of the Principal’s Office. To quote the publisher’s note about the book, “James Spillane, the leading expert on Distributed Leadership, shows how leadership happens in everyday practices in schools, through formal routines and informal interactions. He examines the distribution of leadership among administrators, specialists, and teachers in the school, and explains the ways in which leadership practice is stretched over leaders, followers, and aspects of the situation, including routines and tools of various sorts in the organization such as memos, scheduling procedures, and evaluation protocols.”
NASSP. (2006). Breaking Ranks in the Middle: Strategies for Leading Middle Level Reform.
This publication calls for educators at the middle level to focus on the importance of culture and relationships as opposed to mandates, policy and organizational structure. This publication advocates putting kids first.
