Learning from the best, in and out of the classroom

2011 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library Selection

In the spirit of Studs Terkel's Working, Bill Smoot interviews master teachers in fields ranging from K–12 and higher education to the arts, trades and professions, sports, and politics. The result suggests a dinner party where the most fascinating teachers in America discuss their various styles as well as what makes their work meaningful to them. What is it that passes between the best teachers and their students to make learning happen? What are the keys to teaching the joys of literature, shooting a basketball, alligator wrestling, or how to survive one's first year in the U.S. Congress? Smoot's insightful questions elicit thought-provoking reflections about teaching as a calling and its aims, frustrations, and satisfactions.

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Smoot seeks to capture the universal underpinnings that animate that mysterious mixture of art, science, and intuition that every effective teacher brings to his or her classroom. As these teachers try to describe the ways that they bring their students to understanding, whether that understanding is of history, surgery, acting or prison counseling, one cannot help but be moved by their creativity and passionate commitment.November, 2010

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Smoot's precise questions and thought-provoking follow-ups capture the essence of teaching from those who do it best.August 26, 2010