The Excellent 11: Qualities Teachers and Parents Use to Motivate, Inspire, and Educate Children » (Reprint)

The Excellent 11 are the qualities that children and students embody when they are passionate about learning -- and about life.

After publishing the New York Times bestseller Essential 55, award-winning teacher Ron Clark took his rules on the road and traveled to schools and districts in 49 states. He met amazing teachers, administrators, students, parents -- all kinds of people involved in bringing up great kids. In the best of these people, he noticed the same qualities that he d observed in so many of the teachers, children, and parents he d worked with during his time teaching in North Carolina and Harlem. These are the qualities he describes in The Excellent 11. Ron Clark pinpoints what it takes to make a great student -- and shows that the qualities apply to both educating children and becoming a great teacher or parent. You ll find out what the characteristics are, why they work, and how you can incorporate them into your classroom, home, and life. As he did with The Essential 55, Ron has filled this book with hundreds of suggestions, stories, and wonderfully funny anecdotes. You ll be smiling as you read-and finding the inspiration to change lives, one student at a time.

The Excellent 11 are: Enthusiasm, Adventure, Creativity, Reflection, Balance, Compassion, Confidence, Humor, Common Sense, Appreciation, Resilience.

Publishers Weekly

Part memoir, part inspirational tract and part handbook for beginning teachers, Clark's treatise on how to get children excited about learning lays out some underlying principles of teaching, covering 11 fundamentals: enthusiasm, adventure, creativity, reflection, balance, compassion, confidence, humor, common sense, appreciation and resilience. (This analysis follows Clark's bestselling The Essential 55.) Clark, who was named Disney Teacher of the Year in 2001, shares some of his own blunders and many of his successes while learning to teach, many of which may help new teachers trying to figure out the basics. In a rambling style, Clark relays anecdote after anecdote, as he weaves back and forth from his life as a teacher to his childhood and more advice for teachers, including such details as how to write notes home to parents about field trips. There isn't much depth here, and the book doesn't analyze the nitty-gritty of Clark's own teaching methods or of educational ideas. Indeed, it's more a motivational speech than an educational text, and it isn't hard to imagine Clark speaking these words aloud. However, the book does include some valuable nuggets on how to build children's confidence, help them remember information and teach them to be compassionate, advice that all teachers-but especially inexperienced ones-will find valuable and thought provoking. Agent, Richard Abate. (Aug. 1) Forecast: National publicity, a radio satellite tour and national print ads will boost sales of Clark's second book. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.