Exciting Classrooms

Frank Thoms writes with passion to invite principals and teachers to make changes that will allow all students to succeed. In this book he urges them to reconsider traditional practices in light of today's media-driven culture and digitally wired students. Exciting Classrooms is sensitive to the challenges schools face and is relentless in offering strategies to meet these challenges. Schools must do better. Rather than focus on improving test scores, this book advocates that teachers teach to a child's whole symphony, not only to one note. If students only learn to succeed on bubble tests, they will not have opportunities to discover their true potential. Thoms sees the teaching process as a joint venture between teacher and student where the teacher brings learning to the student and, at the same time, brings the student to the learning. This process demands at least as much listening as talking, a new habit that teachers and principals need to learn.