The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher

This was required reading for teachers this summer. It's been on my list and my bookshelf since college but I never had the motivation to read it because it looks like a textbook. I had heard so much hype about this book that I'm sorry to report I was disappointed. The whole time I felt like someone was trying to sell me something that I already had. It does have some neato ideas but probably nothing I couldn't have come up with on my own. It's filled with MANY pithy sayings about how great teaching is and it did inspire me to hit the ground running in my own classroom. I'll probably consult it once or twice throughout the year but I don't expect it to be the Teaching Bible it's been pitched as (to me, on multiple occasions).

I once had a coffee mug that said :
Those who can, DO
Those who can do more, TEACH
This book is basically that mug stretched out to over 300 pages of meaningless drivel. I saw one page that explained to the reader what a “procedure” is and then listed examples of procedures in real life, like, on an elevator, in airplanes, etc. If you take anything useful out of this book, you are a garbage educator and do not belong in the classroom.