The Best Teacher in You
Book

The Best Teacher in You

How to Accelerate Learning and Change Lives

Robert E. Quinn, Katherine Heynoski, Mike Thomas and Gretchen M. Spreitzer
Berrett-Koehler, 2014

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

A team of researchers studied teachers with high assessment scores to discover how their methods differed from those of their less successful peers. The researchers held workshops and conducted interviews with these “highly effective teachers” to glean insights, formulate theories and identify best practices. Robert E. Quinn, Katherine Heynoski, Mike Thomas and Gretchen M. Spreitzer share the stories of seven extraordinary educators and explain the “Connect Framework,” a four-quadrant matrix delineating the core aspects of fruitful teaching. (The framework’s full name is BFK Connect; the initials stand for Battelle for Kids, the education nonprofit where Heynoski and Thomas work.) Here, the authors focus more on general areas like empowerment, transformation, collective learning and expectations than on specific classroom tactics. getAbstract recommends this inspiring approach to teaching to all educators, and to business leaders and trainers, who will find much applicable advice.

Summary

Kelli

Kelli has taught math to third-graders for 24 years. She has high expectations for herself and for her students. She doesn’t regard her job as merely teaching mathematics. She uses math as a base for nurturing each student’s desire to learn.

Kelli didn’t start out as a “highly effective teacher.” Though dedicated, her second year of teaching was “from hell.” She struggled with several children who had behavioral challenges and asked the principal to transfer one child out of her classroom. When another teacher said, “You have to realize early on that you are not the key to every door,” Kelli experienced an epiphany. She realized she would never again give up on a child. Thus began a lifelong quest to meet the needs of struggling students.

Kelli went through what organizational expert Robert Quinn identifies as a “deep change.” Incremental change ushers in small improvements; deep change is a transformation that involves discarding existing assumptions, and embracing a new belief and purpose. Kelli’s deep change empowered her, enabling her to challenge the self-limiting assumptions her students made about their capabilities. “Transformational” leaders in...

About the Authors

Professor Robert E. Quinn co-founded the Center for Positive Organizations, co-directed by Gretchen M. Spreitzer, who teaches at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Katherine Heynoski is senior specialist at the nonprofit Battelle for Kids, where Mike Thomas is a senior director of innovation.

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