Letters to a Teacher

Sam Pickering has been teaching, guiding, performing, and inspiring for over forty years. As a young English teacher at a boys' school in Tennessee, his musings on literature touched the student who later wrote the screenplay for Dead Poets Society. Since then, his widely published essays and speeches have established him as a thinker with a unique way of finding enlightenment in the quotidian. During a time when discussions about education focus on issues such as testing and funding, Letters to a Teacher reminds us of the art and joy of teaching. In ten eloquent, conversational essays addressed to teachers of all types, Pickering shares compelling, funny, always elucidating anecdotes from a lifetime in the classrooms of schools and universities. His priceless, homespun observations touch on topics such as competition, curiosity, enthusiasm, and truth, and are leavened throughout with stories-whether from the family breakfast table, his revelatory nature walks, or his time teaching in Australia and Syria. Letters to a Teacher is an irresistible invitation into the hearts and minds of an extraordinary educator and his students, and an indispensable learning tool for new and old teachers alike.