So then, recommend one title, and why?

One title per post... :) It can be practical, theoretical, one to avoid at all costs (share your thoughts and save us all time!!), one that should be read after three years/five years/a life time of teaching...?

PRACTICAL

To start us off, 2000 tips for teachers.

I've been teaching in the formal and informal sectors for over 30 years and there's still stuff to learn - the practical bits that one really only picks up from other teachers....

I was really impressed by The Language Police and I'm interested to know if others here have read it?

Other people's children: cultural conflict in the classroom by Lisa Delpit. Explains some of the conflict over education that we see by class and race.

I can only pick one? I'm going to have to go with Educational Psychology:Theory and Practice by Robert Slavin. Yes, it's a textbook, but it's one of the best out there. Big emphasis on cooperative learning, which is easy to seem to incorporate but hard to do well. And, as the title itself says, it's both theoretical and practical.

I really like Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The use of essential questions to guide planning makes you think about why you are teaching an issue or concept.

Gotta say Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. Most important book in my life, both as a person and as a teacher. Really empowering book that has helped me to approach pedagogy and curriculum from a critical standpoint. I don't think this should be missing from any teacher's bookshelf. Seriously, it will change your life.

I recently read Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christenson. It absolutely bent my brain in a different direction about how the new technology of collaboration is going to change education regardless of whether any one in administration, on a school board or in a union wants it to. What I found especially interesting was the thread throughout regarding emergent networks and how this new model of content delivery will eventually reach a critical mass alrge enough to challenge the value-added model of the current system.

When my child was in high school, I gave a copy of the following book (Mapping America's Past) to the child's US History teacher. A week later, she called me back to say that she was going to use that book to revolutionize the way she will be teaching US History in the future. Here's the book link on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Americas-Past-Historical-Reference/dp/0805049274