Disobedient Teaching: Surviving and Creating Change in Education

by Welby Ings

This book is about disobedience. Positive disobedience. Disobedience as a kind of professional behaviour. It shows how teachers can survive and even influence an education system that does staggering damage to potential. More importantly it is an arm around the shoulder of disobedient teachers who transform people’s lives, not by climbing promotion ladders but by operating at the grassroots. Disobedient Teaching  tells stories from the chalk face. Some are funny and some are heartbreaking, but they all happen in New Zealand schools. This book says you can reform things in a system that has become obsessed with assessment and tick-box reporting. It shows how the essence of what makes a great teacher is the ability to change educational practices that have been shaped by anxiety, ritual and convention. Disobedient Teaching  argues the transformative power of teachers who think and act.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Teaching

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2017

Reviews

[Michalla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was truly remarkable. Its basis was this: sometimes you have to make waves and be professionally and productively disobedient. He uses powerful stories that are both funny and heartbreaking to tell his story. However, it is not a education text book or a self help book. It is a text that will inspire and challenge you to be disobedient.

[Courtney (courtneyandherbooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of me saying yes while feeling simultaneously encouraged and disheartened.

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection of sincere and sensible ideas to empower change in the context of systems of over-assessment and power imbalance. Ings', a man with a lifetime's experience, peppers his story-telling with a series of effective anecdotes. While I was left a little unconvinced by the applicability of his business leadership ideas in schooling I know a book's to my liking when I shout out in surprise in its reading.

[Gerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book about teaching I've read.

There's a lot of very good stuff to try here, including lots about Creativity and how to teach kids to be more creative.

But it's also about more than teaching. It's about Education, and within a sociological/political context. Welby gets it.

[Danielle Myburgh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. It's a beautiful collection of powerful narratives mixed with a reality check about education.

[Sándor Tóth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Tier - Excellent - 2019

Along with reading the book, I also attended one of Welby's seminars. He is a friendly, relaxed, and authentic educator who spins a great yarn. His story is relatable; many people find success not at school, but after it. Effective educators work hard against this prophecy, to encourage success, to
nurture self-belief, and to stand up for one's own morals and principles, apologetically.

This book is excellent because the message is simple: be yourself. The kids need you, the real you, the unfiltered you, the human you, the flawed you, the passionate you, the always-there you. Children are not robots. Schools are not factories. Behaviour is not faulty-until-fixed. Systems are too slow to adapt, but as an agent representative of the system, you can do the agile shapeshifting required of a culturally-responsive effective practitioner.

Welby's personal story is powerful and vulnerable, raw and memorable. I will always remember reading this 'call to arms': Be brave, tell the truth, stand up for your students, and don't take shit from a system designed for conformity before care.

[Jrranderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read, with a good balance of philosophy and anecdote. Some excellent points and ideas, rooted in experience and common sense. He lays the blame for the current state of education on the constant testing and evaluation, which has become pervasive but which is ultimately counterproductive, and suggests that to fix this we need to change the way we view education and students. Students should be valued as individuals rather than seen as a potential good/bad statistic for the school, and should have more of a say in what/how they learn.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting content - he tells stories well. However, I think the book could have been more carefully structured? I'd love to hear him speak.....

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to re read!

[Arna of the Metcalfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calming, affirming.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for teachers, principals and all involved in education.

[Susan Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great messages well told with stories, one of which made me cry remembering what a lovely, safe place teachers created for me.

[Chris Mossop · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best 'teaching' book I have ever read, twice, had to use a highlighter, postits and margin notes! Must read

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, real and honest. Inspiring read and highly relatable. I would recommend it to any teacher who feels sometimes overwhelmed by the system and believes that things could be done differently.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

An encouraging read, particularly in today's educational and political climate.

[Derek Macleod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books like this that rattle the cage and push the educational mind set into orbit! Any conversation and dialogue shared that turns the educational framework upside down and incites some subversive thinking is positive. Those who have been in the education industry for many decades as I have been will be aware of its failure, not dismissing the significant successes, of so many of our students who are legally compelled to be enlightened within the straightjacket of school education until they are 16 years of age! Ing has contributed immensely to timely and provocative dialogue as to how we can do better within the educational monolith that we work with at present.
Looking forward to his workshop in Nelson early July.

[Hilary Autagavaia · Rating 5 out of 5]

emotional read of my own experiences

This book is a tribute to Larry Sommerville, Warrick Sanson, Graham Watson, and John Buckland who were silent heroes who in my learning and achievement evolving stage from primary school to University those four people believed in my capabilities, and I implemented my diversity in the last 37 years of teaching.
Welby Ings encapsulated all the teaching tangents diverging from the square black box of normal yea hung transmission and recognised my gifts as part of many marginalised Tangata te Tiriti. As a Samoan my treasures were valued, and Welby articulates theory behind the pedagogy many wonderful teachers have diversified to bring out those treasures.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reality check on a lot that is wrong in contemporary schooling, our misaligned obsession with assessments and the harm this causes, mostly focused on New Zealand. It could have much more depth, but Ings is honest and relatable in his style.

[Sortal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without question, my favourite book on teaching. Have already read twice and will continue to reread. Thank you, Welby.