Without daily classroom demands work many teachers take home, summer is perhaps the best opportunity to squeeze in reading—other than poring over curricula objectives and student essays.
Education Week asked what teachers are reading in an online poll. Teachers choose to read a bit of everything: fantasy, historical accounts, educational pedagogy, science fiction, classics, how-to, inspirational, escapist, and any other genre out there.
Selections that show some teachers’ minds never stray far from their job:
I’m reading a lot of the books in my classroom library in order to place them on a new rubric our district just introduced. I’ve read Kira Salak’s “The Cruelest Journey: 600 Miles to Timbuktu,” Caroline van Hemert’s “The Sun is a Compass: 6,000 Miles Into the Alaskan Wilds,” Natalie Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting,” and Victoria Aveyard’s “Red Queen.”
I’m still working on Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus,” Stephen King’s “Insomnia,” Amy Tan’s “Saving Fish from Drowning,” and a few other titles that I need to become more familiar with for student benefit.
—Tonya C.
I’m reading topics involving differentiating in the modern classroom as well as effective literacy instruction, to name a few.
—Indiana R.
“Unreasonable Hospitality” by Will Guidara, “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, and “Bad Therapy” by Abigail Shrier.
—Jennifer B.
Service manual for Daddy’s last car, étude study and intonation practice intervals for double bass, Stephen Hawkings’ ”Universe” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001: The Final Odyssey.”
—Joseph T.
Just finished “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI” by Ethan Mollick; finally read “Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results” by James Clear; and, just for fun: “The Paris Novel,” by Ruth Reichl, which was delightful!
—Tara M.
The Cesar Chavez autobiography, “It” by Stephen King, “The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics” by James Oakes, “Raising Critical Thinkers” by Julie Bogart, “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Radden Keefe.
—Christopher V.
“The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.
—Pamela L.
“This Side of Paradise,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and “How to Retire Earlier,” by Robert Charlton.
—Christopher L.
Education Week
