Teacher Training Books

Barbara Regenspan is an Associate Professor of Education at SUNY Binghamton where she coordinates and teaches in the Social Justice-Focused Master's Programs in Elementary Education in the School of Education and Human Development.

The author has valued social justice since her high school days, and has been a life-long educator since graduating from college -teaching first in elementary schools and then progressing into college teaching. Her focus now is on teaching prospective elementary school teachers how to develop curriculum that combines the teaching of academic skills in the context of a social justice orientation.

The title of her book states the goal of her teaching approach. More specifically her intention is to convey how the activities and assignments that she uses in her graduate courses for students intending to become elementary teachers can be transferred and applied (with modifications related to the age level, background, interests, and needs of elementary school students) to their future elementary classrooms. The book is partially an autobiographical account of the author's personal evolution as a social justice-oriented educator and community activist. Throughout the book the reader senses Regenspan's heartfelt, emotional, and spiritual connection to her teaching endeavors.

An important theme emphasized repeatedly is the author's re-valuing of some specific and less known lectures of John Dewey. In these lectures Dewey clearly opposed the division of labor in the industrial society of his time. He argued that human learning and work should be an integration of thinking work and doing work, i.e., mind and body in purposeful action. He said that this conception of "mind-body in unified wholeness of operation" could be called "human life." Regenspan's own term for this notion is "wholeness of labor."

The author notes that what she offers in her book is part of an attempt to rethink and reconstruct with her department colleagues a graduate program in elementary education which would be "... rooted in both careful analysis of texts and community based social action, where our students develop curriculum collaboratively with teachers, local activists, and children on the basis of what needs to get done and what would improve the quality of life in this community" (p.47). To this end, Regenspan communicates to the reader the importance of the visceral (the intuitive, instinctive, feeling parts of our lives); the value of humor for assistance in mitigating painful social contradictions and illuminating the struggles of growing up; the usefulness of life stories as a means to teach and learn about oneself, history and the diversity of cultures by encouraging students to write, discuss, and reflect upon their life stories and those of significant family and community members; and the value of reading and critically analyzing life-texts offered in memoir and imaginative literature to enable a better understanding of how human lives demonstrate, provide illustrations of and evidence for the explanations of critical theory.

Other important teaching-learning tools advocated by the author are the concepts of social construction of identity, morality and knowledge, situatedness (Charles Taylor), the dialectic of freedom, the thinkability of specific ideas, and the commitment to overcome obstacles (Maxine Greene), and the whole notion of spirituality which Regenspan believes permeates Greene's challenge to "seize the dialectic of freedom," Dewey and the author's declaration that educators must teach about and model a "wholeness of labor", and the author's conviction that "life texts" are a very valuable means to interpret and make sense of individual and group existence.

The book presents the lesson plans, assignments, study guides, class activities, and strategies the author uses to teach prospective teachers to become socially responsive, and then in a parallel way demonstrates how this teacher education and training has been applied in real elementary classrooms to attain several concrete goals of social justice and equity in a local community. The reader is shown how prospective teachers can be inspired to value social justice, to become social activists, and to lead their students into an understanding and valuing of social justice by encouraging their involvement in local problems and concerns and assisting them to engage in purposeful action to achieve positive community change.

This reviewer wishes he had experienced in his own elementary schooling the exciting activities and learning that the kids in the classrooms Regenspan describes are experiencing. This book is loaded with "good stuff," and should be read by college, high school, and elementary school teachers and administrators, prospective teachers, parents, and anyone else who believes in social justice and wants to obtain information about some successful strategies that have been used to achieve it.

Barbara Regenspan has written a powerful book that will help both elementary, secondary, and college teachers see how the theory and practice of a social justice curriculum can be unified through the use of the arts. It is through poetry, literature, and art creation that students can become aware of the experiences of themselves and others as socially responsible citizens and be stirred to take action to improve life situations. The examples in the book are honest and real, and span the breadth of teaching. Regenspan not only shares the study guides, questions, and class activities she uses in her own college classes, but she takes the reader to elementary classrooms to experience watercolor lessons, block building corners, and poetry workshops in which art and the nurturing of social responsiveness interweave. This is not a recipe book for teaching; it is a book of possibilities. It gives hope to those who are struggling daily to incorporate social justice into their classrooms and shows that it is possible to "teach against the grain" and be spiritually uplifted.

With the government's influence of teacher accountability, I would recommend reading any literature regarding the teaching profession! This IS A MUST READ! I gained so much knowledge from this little book, graciously given to us by Ms. Anderson! READ IT NOW! It is so practical for every day to day teaching routines!