JONATHAN LEAR

Guerrilla Teaching is a revolution. Not a flag-waving, drum-beating revolution, but an underground revolution, a classroom revolution. Its not about changing policy or influencing government; its about doing what you know to be right, regardless of what youre told. Its sound advice for people on the ground: people in real classrooms, working with real children, trying to make a real difference. Jonathan Lears new book, Guerrilla Teaching, is packed with ideas to refresh teaching practice - combining direct teaching with creative child-led learning - and forge cross-curricular links to create engaging, motivating and fun learning experiences. Ultimately, Guerrilla Teaching is about making a difference. Its a book Jonathan Lear never meant to write, but it was just too important not to. Guerrilla: to be a member of an unofficial group of combatants using the element of surprise to harass a larger less mobile target. Guerrilla teaching: To put children, and their learning, at the heart of lessons. To embrace problem-solving and risk-taking in the classroom. To be adaptable and creative. To think about the skills and knowledge children will need in the future. To stand up and make sure children get the education they deserve (even if it means subverting the system!). Filled with thoughts, ideas and strategies that will help to develop creativity and creative thinking in the primary classroom, Guerrilla Teaching is for trainee teachers, new teachers, teaching assistants, experienced teachers and head teachers - theres something for everyone!

Written by Jonathan Lear, The Monkey-Proof Box: Curriculum design for building knowledge, developing creative thinking and promoting independence is a manifesto on how to dismantle the curriculum were told to deliver and construct in its place the curriculum we need to deliver.A group of monkeys. A box full of nuts. A lever. A chute. The monkeys excitedly poke at the box with rocks ... nothing happens. Meanwhile, one monkey sits to the side, observing. Then, when the others wander off, he gets up and - with a curious push of his palm - presses the lever and the nuts tumble down the chute! Not believing his luck, he eats the nuts, presses the lever again and is rewarded with yet more nuts. Hes cracked the challenge of the monkey-proof box.In their early years, children experience a world full of monkey-proof boxes - its a time of discovery, observation and experimentation, as they engage in the frustration and joy of learning how to release lifes nuts. Then, as they progress through school, learning becomes more formal, easier in many ways. The nuts are handed to them on a plate and something important is lost.But it doesnt have to be that way.In this absorbing book, Jonathan sets out how primary school teachers can resist the nuts on a plate approach and deliver a curriculum rich in authentic learning experiences that help children learn from one another and grow into empowered, knowledgeable and creative thinkers who are driven by insatiable curiosity.In doing so, he inspires educators to unclutter their classrooms of the latest shiny initiatives and to foster a more refined pedagogical approach - incorporating elements of facilitated and concept-based learning - that simply improves pupils learning.Suitable for teachers, middle leaders and head teachers in primary school settings.Contents include: Part I: Curriculum. 1 - Slippers; 2 - Less is more; 3 - Skills; 4 - Tightrope walking; 5 - Planning; 6 - Love and hugs, Dave C.; 7 - Softly, softly, catchee monkey; 8 - Hitches and hiccups. Part II: Pedagogy. 9 - Monkey sex; 10 - Rapid and sustained nonsense; 11 - Nuts on a plate; 12 - Nuts scattered in a clearing; 13 - Across the curriculum; 14 - The awkward banana; 15 - Caveman Dave and the TARDIS; 16 - Mastery and independence; 17 - The monkey-proof box; 18 - A spanner in the works; 19 - Freedom.

Los escritores tienden a vivir con una fantasía de cómo les gustaría que se leyeran sus libros. A mí me gustaría que este libro se leyera como una novela policíaca. Es un relato erótico y la culpa es de una idea. En la pelicula Elemental, doctor Freud, Sigmund Freud y Sherlock Holmes aparecen juntos. Se trata de una vinculacion ingeniosa, pues Freud es, sin duda, el Sherlock Holmes de la subjetividad... Este es el misterio que Freud se propone resolver: el misterio de la carne hecha palabra.

«Jonathan Lear defiende en un libro brillante y ágil las teorías del neurólogo austriaco, que inventó un diálogo que puede cambiar la estructura del alma». Juan Arnau, El País