In It Together Paperback

Debbie Zacarian

This book provides a comprehensive approach for building coalitions of support around student learning and engagement through interconnected classroom community-building efforts that involve teachers: building strong relationships with students; intentionally supporting students to build powerful relationships with their peers; fostering strong reciprocal relationships with families, and; building relationships with the school and community at large empowering and creating purposeful intentional spaces for students/families/school community/community at large to build powerful relationships with each other.

1483316777

9781483316772

English

SAGE Publications Inc

1/Dec/15

184

Dr. Debbie Zacarian, founder of Zacarian and Associates, is known for her expertise in strengths-based leadership, instructional practices, and partnerships with culturally and linguistically diverse student and family populations. With over three decades of combined experience as a district administrator, university faculty member, and educational service agency leader, she has been providing professional development throughout the United States. She has written many books and more than 100 journal articles and district and state policies focused on leadership and instructional practices with diverse learners- including English learners, academic language learners, and students living with adversity. Michael Silverstone has been a full-time elementary teacher in Massachusetts since 1998. With Debbie Zacarian, he co-authored the Grade 2 chapter in Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Promoting Content and Language Learning, Mathematics, Grades K-2 (Corwin). His essay recounting his discovery of the vital importance of maintaining professional autonomy while fostering relationships with students, families and colleagues-in spite of all the pressures to standardize classroom practice-is the closing teacher-essay in the anthology Why We Teach Now, edited by Sonia Nieto (Teacher's College Press). Silverstone is also the author of a number of Young Adult non-fiction books including Rigoberta Menchu: Defending Human Rights in Guatemala and Winona LaDuke: Restoring Land and Culture in Native America (The Feminist Press at the City University of NY). He is a Teacher Consultant with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project of the National Writing Project. http://www.umass.edu/wmwp/

Michael A. Silverstone

Building meaningful relationships in education can be difficult, particularly when the parties involved are different from one another in identity, experience, and other ways. As a result, although in principle collaborations and partnerships in education are universally lauded, in practice they are often ignored. What we need are examples of partnerships that work. In it Together, by Debbie Zacarian and Michael Silverstone, suggests productive ways to work with, learn from, and form authentic relationships with diverse communities. Combining their abundant experience in classrooms and schools, and using examples from caring teachers in diverse classrooms, the authors demonstrate what it means to really be in it together." Teachers, administrators, and everyone who cares about the future of education in a diverse society will benefit from the strategies they suggest." -- Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita