Showing results for "Stories" in Educators

Growing up in poverty, and neglected and abused by her own mother and stepfather, Jaz Ampaw-Farr was destined to become a statistic. Her story was changed, however, by five teachers who made a point of putting human connection first, despite the challenges of the education system. Because of these people, Jaz went on to become a teacher, writer and award-winning international speaker who, through celebration and provocation, engages educators and galvanises them into embracing the difference that they can make when they, too, put being a human first.

Christina Asquith presents a moving firsthand account of her year teaching in one of Philadelphia’s worst schools. Told with striking humor and honesty, her story begins when the School District of Philadelphia, in desperate need of 1,500 new teachers, instituted a policy of hiring "emergency certified" instructors. Asquith, then a 25-year-old reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined their untrained ranks. More challenging than her classroom in the crime-infested neighborhood known as "the Badlands" are the trials she faced outside.

Parents Angelina and Ben exist in enviable luxury: not just wealth, success and a gorgeous home, but a loving relationship and beautiful twin babies to complete the perfect family. But having it all means that you have the most to lose. And when cracks begin to appear things fall apart at a shocking pace; and it's twins Max and Mia who suffer the most. Money isn't enough to paper over the problems in this extraordinary and heartbreaking story. It is a foster-caring experience like no other, and one which tests Louise's emotional strength to the core.

When Sky and her older sister Avril were taken into care, the social workers knew this was a case like no other. Raised by unhinged parents who hoarded compulsively, creating horrific conditions no child should live in, the two girls arrived at foster carer Louise's home, neglected, malnourished and indoctrinated. Louise had to draw on all of her experience as one of Britain's leading foster carers to rehabilitate and change the course of their lives.

Louise has trouble on her hands from the first moment that 5-year-old Billy Blackthorn comes to stay. He is one of more than 20 children taken into care from a single family, and erupts into the Allen household with a volatility that is frightening and disturbing in equal measure. It is only as Louise begins to uncover the secrets of Billy's dark past that she begins to understand what made his family 'untouchable'.

Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world - until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her - a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge.

Brought to you by Penguin. It could happen to anyone. One fine April day, Mary Ann Kenny’s husband died suddenly while jogging near their family home. In the months that followed, Mary Ann – who had no history of mental illness – began suffering from depression, and then from a terrifying...

An incredible, revolutionary true story and surprisingly simple guide to teaching your dog to talk from speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, who has taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using simple paw-sized buttons associated with different words. When speech-language pathologist...

Friday the 13th was the last time she felt fully in control of all her limbs. At 1 a.m. on Saturday, her world as she had known it ended... She was fully awake and trying not to freak out at the thought of something foreign travelling up into her body to roam around inside her brain? Is there really a purpose to all this pain? She asked, "Where is GOD when I'm suffering during the agonizingly long wait?"

The students of today tell their stories of adversity and growth in letters to the original Freedom Writers—authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Freedom Writers Diary—who write supportive and powerful letters in response. Over twenty years ago, the students in first-year teacher...

“Has the page-turning quality of a thriller.” —NPR “Strange and wonderful…A book for our times.” —The New York Times Book Review “Propulsive…mesmerizing…breathtaking.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) This unforgettable memoir traces the ramifications of a series of...

Step into the vibrant, complex world of a Chinese college through the eyes of a foreign teacher who has made it his home. In this heartfelt and deeply personal memoir, I invite listeners to experience the joys, challenges, and unexpected beauty of teaching in a culture vastly different from our own. From the quiet girl who poured her darkest thoughts into a journal to the aspiring musician torn between passion and family expectations, this book is filled with unforgettable stories of students navigating the pressures of academics, tradition, and self-discovery.

Declared “the best survival book in a decade” by Outside Magazine, 438 Days is the true story of the man who survived fourteen months in a small boat drifting seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean. On November 17, 2012, two men left the coast of Mexico for a weekend fishing trip in...

There are moments in history that can only be understood in hindsight. And then there are moments like this one— when the change is happening so fast, so deeply, and so quietly, that we are living inside it without fully realizing it. This audiobook exists in such a moment. Over the last seventy years, the United States—and the world—has undergone transformations that once would have taken centuries. Entire industries have risen and disappeared. Ways of working, communicating, learning, and building have been reinvented again and again. What was once physical became mechanical.

After 20 years in the trenches of public education, J.K. Lynch delivers a heartfelt, hilarious, and unfiltered look into life behind the teacher’s desk. The Road to Harris High is not your typical educational memoir—it’s a collection of real stories told with wit, warmth, and unapologetic candor. From unruly students to unexpected life lessons, Lynch’s anecdotes capture the chaotic beauty of teaching and the unshakeable spirit of educators who show up every day, no matter what.

Decades after Scott Turow entered law school comes an all new unabridged production of this classic with a special introduction by and interview with the author One L, Scott Turow's journal of his first year at law school and a bestseller when it was first published in 1977, has gone on to...

From a document in storage, passed down through the family, this story tells about the life of the early Michigan pioneer who, as Treasurer of Hillsdale College, lived through a very important era.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling writer and author of How to Love an American Man comes a memoir that inspires us to remember the special teachers in our lives and reflect on the change we create when we share our stories. Mrs. Korthaus has always been ahead of her time—an educator who...

Jim Zervanos, a seasoned high-school English teacher and father of two, embarks on a mission at the cusp of a new school year. He realizes that today's youth are thrust into a tumultuous world and burdened with saving it. To chronicle this extraordinary period in America, he assigns himself a unique task: keeping a journal.

Life is never easy, but there are times when it feels like everything is against you. Tyra Hodge grew up feeling the world's weight pressing down on her. A nagging feeling awakened, whispering how she would never amount to anything the older she got. Daunted by the increasing demands of education and her private struggles, Tyra turned away.