Katrina Fried

Teachers are applauded and yet at times not understood, and the extraordinary ones get"buried" along with the others. Author Katrina Fried has interviewed 50 of these innovative, passionate and caring teachers and takes the reader into their classrooms through personal profiles. "If I'm bored, they are bored so we don't do busy work in my classroom:, explains one of the teachers. Meaningful and life experiences are taught, producing consistent good students. Representing a wide variety of ethnicities, backgrounds, subjects and grade levels, these men and women range in experience from two to fifty-two years, and in age from twenty-five to seventy-plus.

Want a hero? Read this book and pick one or two. Their profiles will make you honor the teaching professions but more importantly, the extraordinary teacher.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has a desire to be a teacher, know a teacher or to understand that there are exceptional ones in the many teachers who are diverse in their techniques.… (más)

Anyone who's been lucky enough to have a really good teacher knows how inspiring they can be and what a gift it is to be in their classroom. So I expected a book that collects the stories of 50 "extraordinary" teachers to be similarly inspiring. Unfortunately, this book didn't exactly inspire me. Each teacher gets 3 or 4 pages in which to tell their story, and they are all informative in their own way, but it's clear that simple words on a page aren't the best medium for most of these teachers. This should come as no surprise, as it's their dynamic natures and imaginative thinking that have earned them their "extraordinary" label. Most of the teachers couldn't be clearer in their belief that you must teach to the student, and not to the test, and meeting the needs of each student in their classroom requires more energy and enthusiasm than can be demonstrated between the pages of a book. But there is one thing that they all communicated clearly: the best teachers are the ones who have a passion for the profession, and every person included in this book has that passion in spades.… (más)

Reading through the vignettes and personal histories in this beautiful book inspired me and helped me to feel a renewed commitment to my own work in the classroom. As a sixth year teacher, the daily stress and exhaustion of being a teacher sometimes still feels overwhelming. Books like Fried's American Teacher: Heroes in the Classroom reaffirms the challenging, emotional, and high-pressure work that teachers do everyday in their classrooms. I appreciated the opportunity to read more about popular, widely renowned teachers like Rafe Esquith while also learning about the methods and techniques of lesser known educators. I highly recommend this book for any coffee table in the country. It's sure to spark conversations with guests and provide continual inspiration to anyone who has the pleasure to enjoy its pages.… (más)