Seattle, WA.—Coffeetown Press is delighted to announce the release of Risk Teaching: Reflections from Inside and Outside the Classroom (250 pp, $13.95, ISBN: 978-1-60381-106-4), by Peter G. Beidler, a retrospective of an award-winning college professor’s career offering valuable insights for both students and teachers.“Pete’s creative teaching, probing questions, and passionate stories about teaching have inspired me and Lilly conference-goers for over twenty years,” writes Milton D. Cox, director of the Lilly Conference on College Teaching and editor-in-chief of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. “Peter has changed my way of teaching and that of so many others.”
Must we always teach from the inside of a classroom? Do periodic exams encourage learning as well as daily quizzes do? Do you schedule individual conferences with each student at the start of the term? Is lecturing an effective way to teach? If a student falls in love with you—or vice versa—are you doing something right or something wrong? If you have a pedagogical idea that will probably fail, should you try it anyhow? How do we know when it is time to retire from a profession we love? Such questions may make readers uncomfortable, but they may also lead them to change the way they think about the profession. Teachers may reconsider their methods, causing students to reconsider their attitudes.
In choosing the title Risk Teaching, Peter G. Beidler hopes to convey multiple meanings of the word “risk.” “Risk” the verb, as in “take a chance on an amazing profession.” “Risk” the adjective, as in “risky”—teaching that diverges from the safe and traditional path. “Risk” the noun, as in “teach students to take risks” and learn outside their comfort zones. Beidler’s book, like his teaching, is saucy, innovative, and challenging.
“I wanted to challenge teachers to listen to their wild whispers,” Beidler says, “to encourage them to walk away from the safety of traditional pedagogies. I wanted to jolt them into fighting boredom—their own and their students’—by taking risks. Learning should be a barefoot trek in the jungle, not a cruise in the Caribbean.”
PETER G. BEIDLER recently retired from Lehigh University as the Lucy G. Moses Distinguished Professor of English. Widely published in both British and American literature, he has won a number of teaching awards. In 1981 he was named National Professor of the Year by the Council on Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation.
Risk Teaching is available in Kindle ($6.95) and 6x9 trade paperback editions on Amazon.com, the European Amazons and Amazon Japan. Bookstores and libraries can order through info@coffeetownpress.com, Baker & Taylor, and Ingram. Other eBook editions can be purchased on Smashwords, Google Ebooks, BN.com and all major eBook retailers.
ABOUT Coffeetown Press—Based in Seattle, Washington, Coffeetown Press has been publishing the finest fiction and nonfiction since 2005.