Teachers want more. Daniel Shindler's
In Search: Reimagining What it Means to be a Teacher
, is an optimistic, necessary book that invites us to identify our core values as teachers, school leaders, and policy-makers. With those values, we journey with him through a series of fundamental requisites that we can apply and nurture in our lives and places of work.
Using his teaching experiences, practical examples, and storytelling, Daniel illustrates the requisites we should strive for - honing our expertise, creating powerful and memorable teaching experiences, enquiring with honesty about ourselves and those we teach, building meaningful one-to-one conversations, fostering curiosity and resilience, and building a wider school culture of community and pastoral care. By asking the biggest questions of what it means to be an educator and not seeking simple answers, the book is saying here is what is possible. For Daniel, teaching is alchemy and craft that goes beyond career, intertwining our personal and professional lives. Only a holistic approach will do, if we are to create longevity, which is why Daniel is asking us to reimagine what it means to be a teacher by placing it in the intersection of the private and public self. Why else teach, if not to live? How many of us live in our careers but not our craft?
In short, it speaks to the complexity of the human condition of teaching. Our journey is enhanced by Daniel's extensive experience as a teacher of drama, wellbeing and project-based learning within inner cities and internationally, and as lead architect of School21's ground-breaking oracy curriculum. The book includes a compelling foreword by Jeffrey Boakye, teacher and bestselling author of
Black, Listed
and
Hold Tight
. In a world of constant change and shifting priorities, never has the search for craft and meaning been more necessary.