Robert Ward

Robert Ward is an enthusiastic educator, author, and champion for children, who is currently enjoying his twenty-seventh year of teaching English to a wide diversity of students at public middle schools in Los Angeles. Robert embraces a whole-child teaching and parenting approach that attends to each student's social, emotional, soulful, and academic needs. This crucial balance creates classrooms filled with willingness, wisdom, wonder, warmth, and worth!

Robert has written six books for educators and parents:

Reaching the Whole Child by Teaching Whole-Class Novels: Indispensable Advice from an ELA Expert explains how to build class community and cohesion by reading moving and meaningful books together, while also encouraging student independent reading choice.

Teaching the Benefit Mindset: Moving Empathy, Inclusion, and Altruism to the Forefront of Education explores an expansive and enlightened model of educating and nurturing children that values personal growth and greatness, right along with gratitude, goodwill, and giving.

Talented Teachers, Empowered Parents, Successful Students! provides classroom strategies for including all families as allies in education.

The Firm, Fair, Fascinating Facilitator; and its companion workbook, The Teacher Tune-Up, empower teachers to honor the needs of the whole child.

Robert extends his holistic pathway to nurturing children in A Teacher’s Inside Advice to Parents: How Children Thrive with Leadership, Love, Laughter, and Learning, published by Rowman and Littlefield.

In addition to his award-winning Rewarding Education blog, Robert’s articles for educators and parents are regularly featured in Edutopia, Education Week, KQED in the Classroom, ASCD, NCTE, the U.S. Department of Education’s “The Teacher’s Edition” newsletter, and the International Literacy Association.

Robert has also mentored over two hundred teachers at various stages of their careers. His additional leadership roles include a two-year appointment by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to the Student Learning Subcommittee at the California Department of Education and graduate level teaching experience at California State University, San Bernardino, as an adjunct instructor in the College of Education.

Robert lives in the historic View Park neighborhood of Los Angeles with his husband of twenty-four years and their two incredibly cute doggies.​

Interact with Robert

• Email: misterward@sbcglobal.net

• Twitter: @RewardingEdu

• Pintrest: rewardingeducat

• Facebook parent-teacher group: Allies in Education