Teacher Training Books

Having written this book four times, I am not the best critic to judge it. I still like it, and our plans for the fifth edition with a new publisher appeal to me.

Sometimes you judge a book by its cover. Sometimes you read the book and discover so much more. If education is experience. And the essence of experience is self-reliance. Then you should experience this book for yourself.

On the surface the book is about teaching and homosexuality. But what it is really about is something that we can all understand and use to better ourselves. It is about your identity and how you censor and project yourself to others - how much or little do you reveal. It questions why we do what we do in order to make ourselves fit a role in order to gain acceptance.

Have you ever experienced a rite of passage? Such as becoming an adult, parent or receiving a driver's license. If you have faced such transitions in your life, this book is for you! You will learn a lot from the discussion about how these changes affect how you perceive others and they you.

If the duty of a writer is to dig into the psyche and mythologize our environment, Kate Evans has done that with this book. It is universal for all kinds of transitions and times in your life. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it...

"What lies behind you and what lies before you are small matters compared to what lies within you."

Identity, sexuality, and emotion in learning to teach, is the subtitle to this remarkable book, Negotiating the Self, written by Kate Evans. Evans examines the experiences of gay and lesbian teachers in the school setting. She uses several different pre-service teachers and their experiences of teaching to convey the message of the difficulties homosexual educators have in the school systems. Then Evans goes further in this realm of experiencing difficulties while teaching to include any teacher, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion, or creed. Every educator negotiations themselves during teaching because of their own personal identities that they do not wish to reveal to their students.
Why do teachers withhold or avoid answering certain questions their students' pose? This was a key question that I held throughout the entire reading and I still have not answered it. Evan's writing allows the reader to question and think about the conditions she sets forth in her writing about the gay and lesbian pre-service teachers and how they relate to the readers own life, no matter the sexual orientation. Negotiations take place to maintain the social order that is present in any school system, that is the avoidance or not answering a personal question that is posed by a student.
In conclusion, this is an excellent read that makes the reader consider the constraints placed upon them that may involve their sexual orientation, religion, political position, and any other factors that are considered personal by the educator. How one answers, does not answer a question, or withholds information is a process of negotiating the self in relationship to others, which affect all the people involved in the interaction. Evans offers a point of view that openly addresses issues that educators face on a daily basis. Read it to find out how you negotiate yourself!

I originally was not interested in reading this book, but I am glad I did read it. I was entertained and compelled to stop and reflect on how and why we send the messages we do. The journey travels on four different lives that have pain, personal struggles, and laughter, which are things that we all share. Just like any other good book, I couldn¡¯t put it down until I found out what became of these four people. Unlike a fictional story, Kate Evans eloquently narrates the stories, and brings the importance of the common theme, self-identity, to the more national issue of the education and gay/lesbian mix.

The book centers on gay and lesbian teachers in-training, but more importantly, it looks into the way we interact with one another. We get to see a rare look into these professionals through their self-examination and interviews with Kate Evans. This book is a thought-provoking look into negotiating the self.

¡°What happens when one¡¯s senses of self interact with a new role or identity?¡± (Evans, p. 5) I found this to be a major question the Kate Evans addresses. How would you answer this question? How do you believe the one¡¯s sense of self interacts with a new role or identity? Imagine going back to school after years of being out of school, or becoming a parent for the first time. Events like these will affect how you think, interact with others, and who you are. You will forever be changed. Just because the issues in this book are about education and homosexuality, it is still relevant to communities other than the gay and lesbian community and the education community. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to know one¡¯s self better, to examine why we behave the way we do.

The author, Kate Evans, writes an interesting book about the self-identity of gay and lesbian teachers. Through several interviews with gay teachers, and even student teachers the reader learns about the struggle that gay teachers go through in today's society. Do they tell their students their sexual orientation or do they negotiate themselves in order to keep a job and maintain respect in their school.

The book is an easy to read book that is hard to put down. Negotiating the self is based on events and personal experiences that happened to the writer and the several people who were interviewed. The stories told by those in the book are ones that will make you want to laugh and cry in the same reading.

This book made me realize how much information teacher's sensor from their students, and should they really have too? You don't have to be gay to know that there is some information that may not be accepted by your students, parents and other staff members. It could be the fact that you've been divorced, among other things that you don't feel will be accepted by others. There are things that happen in while in school but they are not education. Such as being a role model. So many people that believe since you have a gay teacher, your teacher is going to touch you and "boom" you're gay. The big question in this book is "Why couldn't I just keep my "private life" out of teaching?" (Evans, 3) Is this really possible? Read and form your own opinions.

If you're interested in how your identity is formed--such as your sexual identity or your professional identity--this book is fascintating. It's well-written and includes an array of interesting stories that focus on the lives of gay and lesbian people who are training to become teachers.

This book explains difficult theory in a very readable way. It also examines in very insightful ways the effects of language and culture on our lives.

Highly recommended.

While the second updated edition of 122 Ways to Build Teams is written with schools in mind, it's reviewed here in our 'Business Books' area for its wealth of information suitable for any team-building endeavor. From designing an initial agenda and creating productive team-building conferencing to codes of conduct, unearthing leaders within teams, and using processes in classroom and teaching settings, 122 WAYS TO BUILD TEAMS is a 'must' for not just schools, but for any serious business pursuit.

Yes, lets get serious. This textbook provides a serious, in-depth look at male-female relations. I am a university professor in California, and I have successfully used this book in my classes. The book is not perfect, but its major fault is the lack of a new edition.

Wow, this book is absolutely the most sexist book I have ever read. Some of the things that she spouts are completely ridiculous. Not only does she present "facts" that are nothing more then something she conjured up; she is constantly refuting proven facts and studies, stating that she is right and they are wrong.

I don't know if she has something against males or is just a hateful woman. I can't believe that anyone would actually publish such garbage.

The book is called gender roles, but feminist roles is more accurate. The book only provides for one point of view and it constantly states how men are evil and constantly holding women down and making this world terrible.

Read it if you want a good laugh and you can stand someone blabbing about some fantasies that she has for the ending of male society, possibly then ending of the male gender.

Excellent work: deep, serious, penetrating. People should make comments on the book without having read it. Not an easy read. It is a serious work and requires time and patience (and some familiarity with sociological ideas and concepts). Two negative, pre-mature, anti-intellectual reviews should be removed immediately. This is not a political polemic or grocery store paperback. You have got to read the book and it will take time to digest the arguments.

Perhaps another person with a chip in their shoulder, hiding behind academic credentials.
Example: ch4 Dr. Lindsey spouts such gems as...

"It would be insulting for grown men to be called boys but we routinely refer to grown women as girls. College students take for granted the "guys-girls" distinction so that males do not have to be referred to as "boys." In this manner, linguistic practice routinely implies that females are immature, helpless, and incapable. Males are complete beings who readily take on adult qualities and females are sexual childlike objects who linguistically retain an immature status through-out their lives." **How about this one?.....
"A poet becomes a poetess and an usher an usherette. Again, women are defined as a kind of male appendage that are the exceptions to the male-as-norm rule- imitators not to be taken seriously." Get real!