The Conscience of a Teacher: More Than Fulfilling a Contract

About the Book

The Conscience of a Teacher encourages readers to think deeply about what actions are right for teachers to take in their work with students. Babbage asks teachers to concentrate on doing what is right and on being conscientious. Conscience, ethics, virtue, integrity, and honor are emphasized as well. This book is composed of many short essays which can be read separately; however, read together these commentaries form a compelling exploration of how and why teachers should obey laws, regulations, policies, and contractual obligations, yet should do much more. Why? The reasons include because it is right, because it is honorable, because it is virtuous, and because the conscience of a teacher demands a higher standard.

Table of Contents:

Preface

Introduction
Chapter 1 – Purpose as Guidance
Chapter 2 – Stop the Nonsense
Chapter 3 – Why Teach?
Chapter 4 – Protect Instruction
Chapter 5 – Build Responsibility
Chapter 6 – Challenge Education Reform
Chapter 7 – Communicate with Teachers
Chapter 8 – Communicate with Administrators
Chapter 9 – Keeping Promises
Chapter 10 – Self Honesty
Chapter 11 – Pure Law
Chapter 12 – Great Examples
Chapter 13 – Real People
Chapter 14 – Know When
Chapter 15 – Mandatory Teaching
Chapter 16 – Seek Wise Counsel
Chapter 17 – Getting More
Chapter 18 – Good News
Chapter 19 – Self Preservation
Chapter 20 – The Dictatorship of Data
Chapter 21 – Teacher or Administrator?
Chapter 22 – Keep Learning
Chapter 23 – It is Personal
Chapter 24 – Credit or Discredit?
Chapter 25 – Beyond a Job
Chapter 26 – Keeping Promises
Chapter 27 – Diligent Excellence
Chapter 28 – Increasing Complexity
Chapter 29 – Not Alone
Chapter 30 – Enough?
Epilogue – Your Conscience Speaks To You
About the Author

About the Author :
Keen Babbage has thirty years of experience in middle school and high school education as a teacher and as a school administrator. He has also taught college and graduate school classes.

Review :
We ALL have a conscience, we ALL could recite the Golden Rule, so why aren't we ALL conscience-driven educators? In his latest, easy-to-read publication, Dr. Keen Babbage, takes conscience driven ideas and clearly shows, that when implemented, they will "cause learning!" Read this one, and I'm sure you'll have many "Ah-ha" moments. Over the past several years of working alongside Dr. Keen Babbage, I have seen a ‘Conscience-Driven’ teacher in action. Keen’s artistry with the written word helps remind us as a teaching profession what is important – the unlimited potential of education when steered by conscience-driven teachers. I applaud Keen for this book’s purpose to refocus education on the real impact of conscience-driven teachers. Reading The Conscience of a Teacher: More Than Fulfilling a Contract is a professionally affirming, let-out-the-breath-you-didn't-know-you-were-holding experience. I found myself nodding in agreement as I read, making comments as though I were engaged in a conversation, and cheering on Dr. Babbage as he succinctly and eloquently laid out the joys and frustrations inherent to teaching in today's classrooms. In The Conscience of a Teacher, educators have a thoughtful, compelling advocate who encapsulates the best of what teaching can be in the hands of caring, conscientious educator; the bureaucracy that creates instructional inertia and data sets at the expense of students' learning; and the shifting academic and cultural expectations as teachers and schools are asked to play ever-expanding roles in students' lives. Babbage recognizes that until our society embraces teaching as the consummate balancing act of translating knowledge to learning, shifting passion to engagement, and moderating respect and responsibility with compassion, we will continue to believe that "the perfect [education] reform... is one executive, legislative, or bureaucratic action away." Today's teachers of conscience teach far beyond the limitations of American education policy.