I have been known to make grand declarations of things I plan on doing, only to do just the opposite a short time later. After months of excuses and stalling, I made a new year's resolution to sit down and write a book. I had the idea for a teacher resource book a long time ago, and I thought it would be the easier of the two planned books I wanted to do (the other being a memoir of my time here in the RGV). It would prove to me (and future publishers) that I was up to the task, and was something I wanted to do anyway. When I wrote out self-imposed deadlines for the month of January, I didn't know if I would follow through. Indeed, I almost gave up in the first week, when the crushing exhaustion of going back to school after winter break was making an already monumental task seemingly impossible.Yet I persevered, and the product of my months of work is Ten Cheap Lessons: Easy, Engaging Ideas for Every Secondary Classroom. It is available now, for about $12 for the paperback or $6 to download immediately. I have put my heart and soul into this, and I can't tell you what it would mean to me to know that my book could help me have a far-reaching effect on the education of children I've never met.
Regular readers of I Want to Teach Forever will see some ideas originally published here, as well as many I've been saving for Ten Cheap Lessons. I hope that the book and the website grow together, so that I can have the opportunity to meet more great teachers and collaborate on great new ideas with them. If you read the book and would be interested in having me present a workshop or speak at a conference, please email me, as I would love the opportunity. You know I'll do a good job--I couldn't live with myself if I didn't provide quality professional development.
Thank you to everyone who visits this website, and for all of the positive feedback I've gotten over the past six months. Stay tuned to teachforever.com for updates and opportunities to learn more about it. Enjoy: