The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry K. Wong, Rosemary T. Wong

Likely to Be Invaluable to the Majority of New Teachersby Anonymous

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

December 03, 2009: When I teach students a new skill, I often tell them, "If you want to get really good at this, you should practice the pattern I'm teaching until it becomes easy. Then you can create your own way to do it better." This advice helps prevent a lot of 'doing it MY way' disasters. Of course, there is occasionally a truly gifted student who can figure out how to correctly solve complex problems in his/her own way. But most students benefit from following the patterned examples the teacher gives.

Learning to be an effective teacher is similar. There will always be a few gifted souls who can, without a hitch, on the first day, manage a classroom of 30 needy and diverse learners, while delivering riveting and well-organized lessons, keeping up with paperwork, and maintaining a professional relationship with students, parents, and coworkers. The rest of us can benefit from the patterns laid out by master teachers that are in "The First Days" book.

For beginning elementary school teachers, this book gives an abundance of tried-and-true recommendations (disaster-prevention patterns) for classroom set-up, discipline, lesson planning and parent-teacher communication. If a beginning teacher really sticks to the things the Wongs say, he/she is much more likely to have a well-managed classroom with effective learning taking place.

However, for the experienced teacher or the truly gifted classroom manager (in other words, those who have mastered the basics and are ready to succeed while being creative), the book's advice may seem obvious, inefficient, or uninspiring.

For the majority of beginning teachers, "The First Days" is likely to be an invaluable reference.

P.S. I'm an elementary education teacher, so I can't vouch for its effectiveness for teachers of older students.

This Book empowered meby subSK

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

September 13, 2009: I took a class based on this book to begin substitute teaching. Years ago, just out of college I did sub work without a clue. I did not have a teachering liscence and I felt like my main job was to babysit. I knew nothing about what I was supposed to do in a classroom. I depended on the student to tell me what I should be doing ( this is always a bad move for anyone who would like not to have a day from Hell). I now feel totally prepared to not only control my class, but to actually teach. Even if no lesson plan has been left for me, I know what to do.

As my own children went through school, I saw so many teachers who spent their entire day putting out fires, and waiting for the day they could retire.

New to the profession, or been there forever, this book will empower you to enjoy your career.

In the process of getting controll of your class in what may seem like something everyone should already know, you will be able to teach any student in any area of life. For seasoned teachers, sometimes a refesher can be a big help to move out of your routene that may have become ineffective.