From the Heart of a Teacher : Blurring Color Lines

This book is an account of a school year in the life of an inner city teacher. It is a healthy look at schools, teaching methods, and successful ideas to incorporate into the classroom. These methods were formed over many years by observing, teaching, loving and improving the lives of children.Experience in the inner city is the setting of this book, however, the events chronicled in its pages happened compositely throughout the authors career. It is fiction based on real life happenings. All accounts are typical of her teaching style and the successful methods she presents.Many of the techniques she employs are innovative, unusual, and encouraging. It will motivate and excite the reader, as well as engage them in an interesting account of a school year in an area where poverty is prevalent and children are very needy.The school room is a place where children grow and change and become delighted with learning. Without a doubt this book will instill a desire for everyone to really examine how they can effect the lives of all of the children in which they come in contact.Above all it is a good story about children and their lives and the problems that can so often alter their road to success. The seeds of a life of crime can begin in grade school and society should guard and defend all of the ideals that form its citizens.The story highlights research to back the many methods she has found successful over time and makes the book especially significant for President Obama's "Race to the Top!" Agenda.

Teaching is a highly skilled professional position. Multi-tasking, controlling the classroom, understanding needs, emotional and intellectual involvement, and high-level teaching techniques are just a few of the talents necessary to fill an ordinary day in the life of a teacher. Move those into an inner city school and imagine all of those needs and skills escalated to astronomical proportions. This is what you'll see happening as you read this chronicle of a year in the life of a inner city teacher. You'll see the inside of a classroom and experience how hard issues were dealt with as you meet troubled, smart children who learn to survive and thrive.All of the methods she employs throughout the year are carefully researched and guided by her love of children, her need to inspire and teach the students whom she claims as her own throughout the year. She emphasizes "Race the the Top" qualities that are hopeful for a generation of children that need support, love and dedication.This is a book you'll want to read and treasure as we seek to find solutions to educating all children, for that is the key to a better life and the chance to escape the poverty that is often a breeding ground for crime and discontent in today's world.Books abound on the subject of education, but this book will capture your heart and inspire you to look at children through the eyes of a teacher whose heart and intellect leads her to surround and engage as many methods as is possible to inspire and guide the children whom she has been given for a year.