The Art of Teaching

A charming reflection on 30 years devoted to learning.... Parini offers a number of tips in a manner that is decidedly laid back, friendly and casual--in much the same way, one surmises, that he teaches his own classes. --Los Angeles Times Book Review

To read one of these short essays is like taking a walk with a genial, generous and intelligent teacher who speaks fluently and kindly. The book probably ought to be considered as a sequence of such walks, designed to bring pleasure and some profit, too, to all, but particularly to young teachers entering the field. --Washington Post Book World

What he writes about teaching will be of keen interest to all educators, especially young ones just finding their way in the profession.... Parini has thought deeply about all aspects of teaching, and readers will appreciate his insights on such sundry topics as assessment (he believes teaching to the test is 'anti-educational'); dress (it reflects one's teaching style); and the hiring of new colleagues (people you have to be prepared to work with for the next 20 years). Parini's book may not change the way you teach, but it may make you think more deeply about education than you ever have before. --Education Week

[A] combination memoir and advice book, the tale of a shy, working-class kid from Scranton, Pa., who gradually discovered that he loved to read and write, and that he was happiest when he could pass along that love to young students.... When he zeroes in on the passions that animate good teachers, and the nuts and bolts of running a lecture course or a seminar, the book takes wing. --William Grimes, The New York Times

Parini, an English professor at Middlebury College, shares his quiet wisdom on guiding students toward the pleasures of critical thinking. Equal parts memoir, essay, and practical advice, Parini's handbook for the writer who teaches is a gentle, elegant tribute to those who turn the life of the mind into a performance art. --Utne Reader

Practical and philosophical, ardent and lucid, Parini covers the nitty-gritty of teaching, explains how writing is nurtured by teaching and vice versa, and discusses why teaching students to think critically not only about books but also about the world around them is so very crucial. --Booklist

One pleasing aspect of The Art of Teaching is Parini's candor about professorial anxiety, similar to the stage fright that afflicts some longtime actors. --Philadelphia Inquirer

Writes with economy, clarity and passion. He argues that part of a professor's work is to challenge students' assumptions. He has done the same for readers with this good book. --The Charlotte Observer

An eloquent and humane vision of our most vital human resource--teaching and its role in our civilization. Written with a poet's elegance, The Art of Teaching is part memoir and part personal and practical reflection on what it means to be in the classroom with students. A seasoned teacher and writer, Parini gives us a remembrance of great teachers who changed his life and of how writing and scholarship come together to make teaching better and richer. This book is also a reflection on the dynamic relationship between teachers and students, academic colleagues old and young and the important community they all create when they come together on a college campus. In an age when the pursuit of money and the God of materialism threatens to swallow America whole, Parini reminds us that the intellectual and human values that happen in the classroom are our most important preparation for life. --Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate

Jay Parini, novelist, poet, biographer, and editor, has now given us an extremely readable and useful book about teaching, drawing upon his decades in the classroom on both sides of the desk. Aptly titled, The Art of Teaching is itself artful in its well-measured, outspoken, and entertaining look at a subject not enough explored and therefore the more welcome. ---William Pritchard, Professor of English at Amherst College, and author of Shelf Life: Literary Essays and Reviews

In discussing his own lecturing, Isaiah Berlin said he was 'fumbling for the light switch in a very large but very dark room.' Parini switches on lights, and if he does not make all the darkness visible, he illuminates much of the mystery of teaching and shows us all how to do better. Parini is a fine writer and a superb teacher. He blends inspiration with practical advice--describing, for example, the classroom as theater. Jettison all those heavy volumes on methodology and read this small book. Read with a pencil and mull, and you will become a better teacher, and maybe a better person. What a friend teachers have in Parini! --Sam Pickering, author of Waltzing the Magpies and The Best of Pickering