Shanna Peeples - Think Like Socrates: Using Questions to Invite Wonder and Empathy Into the Classroom, Grades 4-12

Shanna Peeples (2015 National Teacher of the Year) speaks a voice thats not heard often enough in the places where critical decisions are made about educationthe voice of the experienced, devoted, and passionate teacher. As a nation, we should never make educational policy without asking whether it will support pedagogical practices of the sort this book advocates. If students learned to think like Socrates, it would benefit them, their workplaces and communities, and our democracy in countless ways. May this book find tens of thousands of readers who want to put Peepless well-tested insights into practice!

Parker J. Palmer, Author of The Courage to Teach,
Let Your Life Speak, and On the Brink of Everything

Excellent writing and a wealth of inspiring examples from distinguished educators make this possibly the strongest Corwin book I have read in the past ten years.

Michelle Strom, Middle School Language Arts Teacher
Fort Riley Middle School, KS

Equal parts affirming and challenging, this book confirms why so much of what feels like good teaching is also messy, emotional, and personal. Peeples is a master teacher and a spectacular writer, and here we have a book that is evidence of both. This is a book that respects the intelligence of teachers. I plan on sharing this book with every teacher I work with.

Tom Rademacher, Eighth-Grade Language Arts Teacher
St. Anthony Middle School, Minneapolis, MN

Allowing students to pursue their own questions is upheld as a powerful and driving force in learning. Furthermore, the stories in this book are personal and powerful. They helped get my mind and heart involved and ready to read on. Teachers will be able to recognize their own students in these stories.

Jane Hunn, Sixth-Grade General Science Teacher
Tippecanoe Valley Middle School, Akron, IN

Peepless book is important and relevant. It covers topics that educators are grappling with and provides authentic examples that will connect with them. Both novice and master teachers will be able to put these protocols and lesson plans into practice immediately. This is a resource that both administrators and teachers will revisit over and over again.

LaQuita Outlaw, Principal, Grades 68
Bay Shore Middle School, NY

Great for staff development, new implementation of Socratic seminar, and enhancing the craft of inquiry. This is a must-have for AVID school sites in particular.

Valeria C. Ruff, AVID Coordinator and Elective Teacher
Druid Hills Academy, Charlotte, NC

If you wish your classroom privileged students questions, and fostered authentic discussion and relationships that support discourse, then Think Like Socrates is a must read. Shanna Peeples provides simple but powerful structures to get started but also to make such an environment thrive.

Kara Vandas, Education Consultant

Shanna Peeples has dedicated this book to her students and described it as a love letter. It is. It is also a superb and powerful resource for educators committed to designing and developing learning cultures of curiosity and meaning-filled inquiry. Socrates said, Wisdom begins in wonder. As human beings, questions are our North Star; we walk in their direction, so we must ensure they are not too small for our imagination. By grounding learning and teaching in student-generated questions, we invite children to develop agency over their own learning and choose the questions they wish to walk throughout their lives. Adroitly and wisely integrating current research on learning and teaching for deep understanding with her own personal experiences in fostering Socratic thinking within her students, her colleagues, and herself, Peeples has generously gifted us with a new narrative and a new map for inviting curiosity, wonder, and empathy into the classroom, by design. This book is a treasure.

Stephanie Pace Marshall, PhD
Founding President and President Emerita
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Chancellor, The Lincoln Academy of Illinois
Fellow, The Royal Society of Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce, London

Teachers and students are parched for authentic and significant conversations in todays schools. Through insightful innovations on an ancient tradition of posing thoughtful questions, Shanna Peeples offers here a practical guide for building wisdom and meaningful learning in todays classrooms. This book will be an asset for deep inquiry among pre-service and in-service educators alike.

Randy Bomer, PhD, Dean
University of North Texas College of Education
Denton, TX

If you are looking for a pathway to a remarkable student-centered classroom, Shanna Peeples teaches you how you can use questions to connect with your students, garner deeper engagement, and excavate the deep intellectual thoughts that are within our students, yet seem so difficult to uproot. Think Like Socrates is a practical yet soulful book, one that speaks with honesty and compassion to the power of questions and how they can transform your classroom.

Brian Sztabnik
College Board Advisor for AP Literature and Composition
Miller Place High School, NY

In this book, master teacher Shanna Peeples takes us inside the world of compelling classrooms, showing us what makes them tick and how they can be made to soar. Think Like Socrates is a tour de force that moves effortlessly between theory and practice, advancing an argument about the critical importance of inquiry as a mode for teaching and learning and providing detailed examples and resources which show how this can be accomplished. I learned a lot from this book and think you will too.

Jal Mehta
Associate Professor
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Questions are the pulleys of learning. Once that space between question and answer has been created, its the question, not an answer, that pulls our students to new insight and greater understanding. Shanna Peeples knows this because she lives it and practices it. As soon as you meet her students and see her pedagogy in action, youll recognize your own students and classroom. Youll see the way Peepless clear and accessible instructional framework will liberate their thinking and empower their voices. This book has a place on the bookshelf of every teacher I know.

Sarah Brown Wessling
2010 National Teacher of the Year

For my students, a love letter

Think Like Socrates

Using Questions to Invite Wonder and Empathy Into the Classroom, Grades 4-12

• Shanna Peeples

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