Book Offers Practical and Refreshing Ideas

Over the holidays I had the chance to discuss Doug Lemov’s book, Teach Like a Champion, with my wife Lisa, who is a National Board Certified Teacher in an elementary school. As a veteran teacher of 18 years in the classroom and one who is always looking for ways to improve her craft, I wasn’t surprised that she found Lemov’s 49 techniques essential to the art of teaching to be concrete, specific and easy to implement for novice and/or career teachers alike.

Our discussion of Teach Like a Champion and review of the DVD contents centered on three things: some great reminders and validations about good teaching techniques; some new ways of thinking; and her overall thoughts.

Doug Lemov believes teaching is an art and is not innate — what a refreshing, and often contradictory idea these days. As Lisa reminded me, the book tackles some of the most difficult issues K-12 teachers deal with daily: how can you make more time, how can you keep from being stressed out and angry by things beyond your control, how can you get students to think critically, why have so many students given up on learning so early in their lives, and why does it seem that so many teachers are working harder than some of their students.

Although the book provides suggestions for responses to students, we discussed how it doesn’t diminish a teacher’s creativity and doesn’t assume teachers are not capable of teaching without a script. Teach Like a Champion can truly help teachers put students first by focusing on their success. The techniques are true examples of the saying “work smarter, not harder.”

Reading and using this book as a resource will cause you to reflect seriously on your practice as a teacher, not because someone mandated something new, but because it provides practical knowledge and tools that can help without assigning blame and because students will be the direct beneficiary.

I believe Doug Lemov’s book, Teach Like a Champion is insightful and practical. We’ve used it in SPS as a book study for our academic team at the central office, principals and instructional leadership teams in schools.