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A Class Act: Teaching for Smarties
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW
BUT DIDN'T LEARN IN YOUR EDUCATION COURSES!
Part handbook, part memoir, this guide provides practical tips to help first year teachers gain confidence and achieve success. Ralph Maltese is a teacher's teacher,* and he "tells it like it is." A Class Act is truly teaching for dummies need not apply! Among the topics
• Marketing yourself
• Research and Reality
• Making the bureaucracy work for you
• Teacher Triage
• Addressing discipline The Class from Hell
• The Class, the Whole Class, and nothing but the Class
*Classroom teacher for 36 years; technology coach; Fulbright Teacher/Scholar; Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year; State Consultant-Classrooms for the Future; Adjunct Professor for Integrating Technology in the Classroom
BUT DIDN'T LEARN IN YOUR EDUCATION COURSES!
Part handbook, part memoir, this guide provides practical tips to help first year teachers gain confidence and achieve success. Ralph Maltese is a teacher's teacher,* and he "tells it like it is." A Class Act is truly teaching for dummies need not apply! Among the topics
• Marketing yourself
• Research and Reality
• Making the bureaucracy work for you
• Teacher Triage
• Addressing discipline The Class from Hell
• The Class, the Whole Class, and nothing but the Class
*Classroom teacher for 36 years; technology coach; Fulbright Teacher/Scholar; Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year; State Consultant-Classrooms for the Future; Adjunct Professor for Integrating Technology in the Classroom
186 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2011
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 16, 2026
Aimed at the beginning teacher, this book provides a good overview of the challenges faced by teachers and some basic advice on how to set the right tone and hit the ground running. There's a lot of common sense here, but I appreciate that the author takes the middle ground between a strictly traditionalist approach and a total embrace of the latest educational theories. He takes what he can use from both sides, and sets realistic expectations.
The pacing is quick and the tone is light and entertaining, especially the author's gimmick of giving all the students in his anecdotes names from Shakespeare.
While some of the author's advice regarding use of technology is dated as one might expect, there is plenty here that is timeless, if not entirely groundbreaking.
The pacing is quick and the tone is light and entertaining, especially the author's gimmick of giving all the students in his anecdotes names from Shakespeare.
While some of the author's advice regarding use of technology is dated as one might expect, there is plenty here that is timeless, if not entirely groundbreaking.
Displaying 1 of 1 review