Product Description

Teachers touch the lives of thousands of young people during their careers, inspiring and motivating learners to reach their maximum potential. In order to be able to do their jobs effectively, they need to understand the context within which they work and be able to reflect critically on what they do and why. If you are embarking on a career in teaching and the prospect of influencing the future through your work with young people is both exciting and daunting, then this is the book for you.

The new edition is revised and updated throughout. It remains a unique and powerful combination of ideas, analysis, questions, answers and wisdom, with the combined professional experience of the editors and contributors providing a wealth of knowledge and opinion. Whilst the book’s philosophy remains the same, the addition of three new chapters on ‘education for sustainability’, ‘school effectiveness and improvement’, and ‘education policy’ - combined with eleven new contributors - provides fresh perspectives, ideas and issues for discussion.

The book is divided into four main sections:

• First thoughts
• Policy, society and schooling
• Teaching and learning
• Across the curriculum

It provides a broader context in which education sits by addressing fundamental areas such as classroom management, adolescence and assessment for learning, alongside practical advice and key issues to consider. Finally, the authors provide information about roles and responsibilities in areas including personal, social and health education, information technology, literacy and citizenship.

Becoming a Teacher is inspiring reading for prospective, trainee and new teachers, tutors and mentors.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187474 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 392 pages

About the Author
Justin Dillon is Senior Lecturer in Science and Environmental Education at King’s College London.

Meg Maguire is Professor of Sociology of Education at King’s College London.

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Customer Reviews

An excellent insight into teaching
This book is an extremely useful book for anyone going into the teaching profession. Unlike most books on this topic it is very critical of the governments education policies. It disagrees with their definition of what is a good teacher and offers a different perspective. A very good book to read if you do not know what to expect in the first few years of your career as it does not gloss over the negative sides like most; However it does offer advice on how to overcome these. A refreshing insightful outlook at the education system and the role of teachers in todays society.

So you want to become a teacher?
The book is aimed at the trainee and newly qualified teacher and it explores a number of key issues for the developing professional. These issues range from educational and social policy making to the role of the form tutor. The introductory chapters seek to make sense of the trainee experience in terms ranging from personal and professional qualities to educational theory and research, urging the new teacher to be experimental and to adopt a life-long approach to learning about their vocation. The main part of the book then provides an overview of recent education policy decisions and current initiatives before investigating some important aspects of teaching and learning. Finally the book examines a number of key cross-curricular issues; including spiritual education, healthy schools, and ICT. Throughout, the book engages with educational research. Links are made to recent findings and the references are valuable.

In an overview such as this there is bound to be generalisation. Without exception, however, all of these pithy summaries provide a useful context for the accounts of research findings.

This book will no doubt find itself on the reading list of countless undergraduate and postgraduate trainee teachers, and quite rightly so as it provides a good starting point for new professionals. It deserves a wider readership, however, as it offers an equally stimulating refresher to the more experienced teacher.

An eye opener
I've just started a PGCE course and got this book our of the library. Its not on the reading list, but i think it should be. I've only got about half way through it, which has taken about a week, but it has already given me a tremendous insight into the environment I will be entering. The book is very open about some of the key issues, and tells it like it is, rather than what some would like it be. A must read for anybody entering the profession, I feel.