New Releases by Thomas Jerome Baker

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." ~John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the USA. "Exceptional Educational Leadership" is grounded in the author''s personal experience of developing an experiential philosophy of exceptional educational leadership. Indeed, after the quality of teaching, leadership is the second most influential factor in the quality of education. For this reason, the educator who seeks to fully develop their capacities as a leader will be eager to engage with the bold idea that forms the central argument of this book, namely, that everyone is a leader...

"White nights and dark days" is not ordinarily something to be giving thanks for. In the case of Alaska, however, I''m sure you will forgive me for calling the bright night of the white midnight sun, "breathtakingly beautiful", and the dusky days, "delightful". Therefore I say in the Yup''ik language, "quyana". Quyana is the Yup''ik Eskimo word for, "Thank You" in English. Thankful, appreciative, and grateful is what I feel each time I remember the 10 days of my life that I spent in the Yup''ik Eskimo village of Quinhagak (pronounced kwin-uh-hawk). In March 1998, I volunteered to go to Alaska as a member of a joint-service, military, medical team. The mission was a humanitarian one: to provide no cost medical service to the Yup''ik people of the village of Quinhagak.Each year for the past 18 years, Operation Arctic Care brings approximately 300 military personnel, and 70 thousand pounds of cargo and medical supplies, to rural communities throughout Alaska. It?s a military field exercise that provides free medical care to underserved populations in Alaska. In 1998 we were in Southwest Alaska, and my team was assigned to Quinhakak. In return for providing care, servicemen and women from several branches of the military would be learning to adapt medical services for unfamiliar field conditions.And so it was that we entered the village in the only way possible, by air. Riding in on the Alaska National Guard Blackhawk helicopter one thing was clear: ahead of us lay long days and difficult working conditions, bitter cold in a harsh, unforgiving environment, hardships to be endured, and medical emergencies to deal with. Would we rise to the challenge? In a moment of horror, involving a shooting that would leave one person dead and another badly wounded, we would find out some very profound answers to these questions. Our actions would capture headlines all over the state of Alaska, and leave us changed for the rest of our lives. Fourteen years later, I revisit, retell, and reflect on those white nights and days of darkness. "Waqaa" and "Quyana" remain the only words I can remember in Yup''ik: Waqaa means "Hello". Quinhagak, I greet you again, this time from within these pages: Waqaa... Hello Quinhagak, a treasured memory...

I am a teacher, and I teach in Chile. This year a new Teacher Career Law, defining the teaching profession in terms of increased prestige, attracting more applicants from higher performing students, an obligatory enabling exam, higher salaries, fewer hours teaching in the classroom, and higher responsibilities wil be passed, hopefully.This book totally supports the idea that a good law is needed, and now is the time to pass one, even if that law is not yet perfect. We Teachers have such a long way to go, and this is clearly a tremendous step in the right direction. To celebrate, all of the funds received for the sale of this book will go to support the EdCamp Santiago free conference for teachers in Chile. Thank you, in advance, for buying this book. May God Bless You...Soy el más afortunado de todos quienes trabajan. A un médico se le permite traer una vida en un momento mágico. A mí se me permite que esa vida renazca día a a día con nuevas preguntas, ideas y amistades. Un arquitecto sabe que si construye con cuidado, su estructura puede permanecer por siglos. Un maestro sabe que si construye con amor y verdad, lo que construya durará para siempre.

This is the first book about the unconference movement that seeks to address the question: Is the unconference dead? It looks at BarCamp, Edcamp, Educamp, TeachMeet and weighs in on hybrid events - traditional conferences that include an unconference track. Thomas, himself a Co-Founder & Co-Organiser of EdCamp Santiago, reassures the potential unconference organiser that organising a perfect unconference is a lot less complicated than it seems. "...a perfect unconference ... would be a jam session, a moveable feast. Improvisation has signal, it has pattern, it has structure, it has plans, but it also has the freedom to say or play what it seems right to say or play at that moment. Whatever works is what I want to be free to do, what the work of the "un" ought to accomplish, to make working an always-provisional, always-scrutinized, always-open value. Let a thousand models bloom, and then cross-pollinate." (Timothy Burke, February 9, 2012, "Easily Distracted")

Poems and poetry are important because they give us a more pleasant lens to view the world we live in. Whether love, people, places or faces; beauty or the beautiful; poetry enhances our lives, enriches it, and makes our experience of life itself more enjoyable. As a teacher, I write as one who learns and teaches at the same time. Poems and poetry give me this possibility, which is an extraordinary privilege. For my family, in Chile and in the USA, I can not write without thinking of you, for you are always with me. You are the beginning and the end of my world. For you, dear Reader, I share what makes me who I am, namely, a person who must write, not only in prose, but in poetry as well. I also look at poems that inspire me, share them with you, and finish with the spoken word, for a spoken poem is one that demands to be heard, always. It can not remain silent, unspoken. "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." - Maya Angelou With our roots deep in Arkansas, Maya and I share a Southern heritage. That is where the similarity between us begins, and ends. As Maya points out (to me), both beauty and poetry are rarely viewed with a developmental lens, but rather, as a "finished" product. I am, however, along with my poetry, a work in progress, and I present my current poetical thought from this perspective, that is to say, my best work is yet to come... This book is dedicated to my family, USA & Chilean, and their families, and their families yet to be. On countless occasions I''ve said to them: "One day I will write our story." This time it is I who again make the promise, "One day, I will write our story." Like all writers, I have no clue if the promise will ever be kept, yet I must admit, I enjoy writing for you. More importantly, I have the hope that you will find something in my writing with which you can identify. In this way, you my brother, Charlie, and you, my sisters, Linda, Kathy and Bernice, will become heirs to a shared memory of days gone by, days present, and days yet to come. More importantly, the memory will live beyond us, beyond our days, and beyond our time. And that is well as it should be. Thus, this is the reason I write for you. Again, it has been my pleasure to write the treasured and shared memory, poetically, personally, for you.

The interview is a genre of written English that gets very little attention, if any, in English Language Teaching. It is highly individualized in nature, requiring flexibility on the part of the interviewer and the interviewee, if it is to be genuinely interactive and spontaneous.Yet what conclusions can draw about an interview, in general, that might be helpful for the English Language Learner? To attempt to answer that question in any kind of depth, actual interviews will be used as a base of reference. Thus, this book attempts to shed some light on the interview as genre in ELT.

There can only be one. The Last Storyteller will control the power of "Lapis Philosophicus", the Philosopher''s Stone. That power is gold, which means wealth and riches beyond the capacity to count. But more importantly, the Stone means immortality. In this fast moving stories, you meet the Storytellers who vie for the glory of being, the Last Storyteller.

How can we get teenagers engaged in autonomous and cooperative learning? If the teenagers you teach are like the ones I teach, this is not an easy task. Why? Because being a teenager is difficult. However, I believe there are some avenues I''ve taken that can offer a way to increase your success in teaching teens. The aim of this book is therefore, to share experieces which have worked. This is not intended to prescribe, but to describe. The successful teacher will adapt my experience to their own teaching and learning context.