The Compassionate Classrooms Book Club: What You Need to Know

Can you see that bright light off in the distance a bit?

It's the light at the end of your tunnel, friends!

Standardized testing season will be ending soon. AP and local exams will be over soon. Grading and reporting and a thousand different assemblies and concerts and evening events....they will be over, soon.

I look forward to that light at the end of the tunnel every year, and yet, the calm always leaves me feeling a little sad. I'm not the only one. From the time my daughter was a very little girl, the last day of school found her stepping off of the bus, greeting summer with a huge smile, and then, bursting into tears. She would miss her teachers, she always told me. She would miss her friends, too.

I understood. I always felt the same.

Summer gave us so much time to do a different kind of learning, though. It helped us find different teachers. It helped us make different friends.

And those relationships mattered so much.

This summer, Ellen and I are hosting a virtual book club right here on Compassionate Classrooms. We hope you'll join us for a different kind of learning. We need some new teachers. We're excited to make new friends, too. We'd like to talk about Hacking School Culture: Designing Compassionate Classrooms with you.

Here's what you need to know, in order to make the most of this opportunity:

1. Each Monday, we will invite you to explore one chapter--or Hack--of our new book, which was just released last week. You'll find a quick video welcome, where we will share our reflections about writing that part of the book and our impressions of the teachers we featured in it.

2. Each Wednesday, we will return to explore the specific ideas and practices included in that same hack. We will also share additional resources, research, and ideas that will push your thinking beyond our book and help you plan to implement what we learn together.

3. Those who join us will be encouraged to share their thinking, their questions, and their needs in the comments section of each post and in our Facebook group whenever they're inspired to. We're very excited to chat with you.

4. Finally, and most importantly, those who participate should be sure to bookmark this page. We will archive every post there, so you can return and share with others anytime. Those who choose to subscribe to our site will receive a full set of reflective questions for each chapter of the book, as well as a variety of resources and activities that may be used to deepen your independent study or facilitate group studies. These materials will not be shared elsewhere online.

Are you unable to join us right now? That's fine! Jump in whenever you need to, move at your own pace, and return to posts as often as you'd like.

If you are still confused, just drop us a message or reach out to us on Facebook. We're happy to help.

Need a book? They're available now.