In There With the Kids: Teaching in Today's Classroom - Hardcover

Kobrin, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395500834 ISBN 13: 9780395500835

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1992

Synopsis

A study of the art of teaching introduces two fictional teachers and follows them through their classroom episodes to describe the excitement and challenges faced by teachers in their everyday communications with students

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

An eccentric work that uses case histories of two fictional teachers to describe classroom life at its potential best. Apparently aimed at teachers, this book might interest parents as well. Kobrin (Education/Brown Univ.) introduces us to the mythical Hilary Coles, an enthusiastic young woman who teaches tenth grade, and her counterpart, Mel Stainko, an experienced fourth-grade teacher. We also meet students in their classrooms and watch the multiple interactions through the course of a number of projects. Kobrin's point is that for teachers and students, every school day, from opening bell to closing conference, is a series of sometimes intense psychological encounters. Lesson plans notwithstanding, how the teacher views and manages these encounters determines whether students and teacher ``change and grow or wither and die.'' Kobrin's point is laudable, and not so difficult to enact if there are 15 students or fewer in each class, as seems to be the case here. Hilary and Mel are intelligent, well educated, imaginative, patient, understanding, and sympathetic to their students--virtually perfect. It all smacks of Dick and Jane in the classroom. Very readable, but an ornament rather than a tool for teachers. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly

A professor of education at Brown University offers a valuable and entertaining course in pedagogy following two fictional teachers in realistic classroom scenarios. A young woman new to high school instruction and a man long familiar with the elementary classroom are composites of teachers drawn from the author's observations as supervisor, researcher and participant in teacher education programs. Their experiences highlight the constantly changing interpersonal relations in the classroom and demonstrate that personal enjoyment, even when students' behavior is directly challenging, is part of a teacher's stock-in-trade. As we follow students reacting to Petrarch's love sonnets or, variously, wrestling with the concept of plane in a fourth grade geometry lesson, we see disparate management and pedagogic styles and personal motivations in operation. Kobrin's analysis of each approach and his perceptions on the teaching/learning relationship make this a useful resource for prospective teachers as well as others concerned with what should go on in the classroom.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0395500834
• ISBN 13: 9780395500835
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256