Teach Our Children Well: Essential Strategies for the Urban Classroom

Helen Maniates, Betty Doerr, and Margaret Golden have many years of experience working with effective teachers in diverse urban communities. And from their considerable research, they know the optimal conditions for significant learning to take place. Teach Our Children Well is a record of all that they have learned, detailing the seven essential features of a positive classroom community. Focusing on rapport, tradition, pride of place, a sense of belonging, a standard of personal best, academic engagement, and support to independence, Teach Our Children Well shows how the personal authority that teachers exert, coupled with rapport with each child, motivates students to strive for their personal best…how academic engagement with a supportive, organized physical environment provides students with a chance to achieve long-lasting learning…how time spent building respect among students produces a sense of belonging…how, with such a scaffold for learning in place, students increasingly internalize what they have experienced and start functioning independently and successfully. Specific examples and strategies, activities and projects that draw on diverse cultural backgrounds, anecdotes, photos, and student work samples come from urban classrooms where teachers have been instrumental in creating supportive learning communities. For elementary school teachers seeking to make their classroom climates more learner friendly, this book is a practical guide.