Ripple Maker: Teaching Effectively & Loving It!

Today's teachers need encouragement. Too many have lost their passion and purpose as a result of high-stakes testing, lack of administrative support, and the endless stream of unsuccessful reforms. Over half of new teachers today leave the profession before their fifth year. Many veteran teachers are merely hanging on until retirement. Classroom management is more difficult with each passing year. The current generation of students, who have always been 'connected' to the digital world, are becoming disconnected with school. Media outlets and governmental leaders tighten the screws to the breaking point. More and more programs, reforms, laws and curricula are added to teachers' plates but very few are removed. The burden is heavy. Many teachers are frustrated, discouraged and simply tired. This book, Ripple Maker: Teaching Effectively and Loving It!, promises to encourage teachers everywhere and help them rediscover the passion they once had for teaching. Using his 33-year teaching career as a guide, Davis Laughlin helps all educators become more effective than they have ever been. From his early years of mediocrity to his later years of award-winning impact, Laughlin shares a few valuable tips he picked up along the way. You will laugh, you will cry, but most of all, you will relate to this book and find something helpful in it. Laughlin's common sense style and research-based insight are just the recipe for all teachers who would like to teach more effectively with a greater joy. In the hands of an honest, dedicated teacher or administrator, this book will help restore the passion and purpose so many educators have been missing.

Davis Laughlin is a nationally recognized educator/speaker with 34 years of experience in the classroom. Laughlin twice received his Circle School District's teacher of the year award, was honored twice as a regional finalist in the Kansas Teacher of the Year program, and in 2010 was chosen as one of the top five teachers in the United States by the Live with Regis & Kelly television show. Throughout his years in education, Laughlin also spent over a combined 80 seasons as a coach of basketball, volleyball and track and field at the middle school and high school levels, serving as a 4A class representative on the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association. Laughlin currently teaches graduate workshops for teachers and provides exciting professional development programs for schools and districts across the country.