Biography & Autobiography - Educators

Outspoken New England urbanite Horace Holley (1781-1827) was an unlikely choice to become the president of Transylvania University--the first college established west of the Allegheny Mountains. Many Kentuckians doubted his leadership abilities, some questioned his Unitarian beliefs, and others simply found him arrogant and...

The story of Musahib Ud-Din Khan is not a run of the mill tale of rags to riches. It is rather an inspirational narrative about the potential of education as a vehicle for upward mobility and for realization of individual potential in the face...

Neither a cautionary tale nor a polemic, Men as Friends is about a variety of male friendships and a variety of men. A "coming-of-old-age story," it speaks to an audience of men who love or have loved other men but are too embarrassed to...

During his seven years as chancellor of the University of Arkansas, David Gearhart was outspoken on many issues, including putting students first, advocating for undocumented and minority students, and raising the profile of the university as a nationally-recognized research leader. But on some of...

"The rare book that has the potential to make you smarter--and everyone around you wiser." --Adam Grant Two-time world champion debater and former coach of the Harvard debate team, Bo Seo tells the inspiring story of his life in competitive debating and reveals the...

NEVER IN THEIR WILDEST DREAMS did the young couple imagine their teaching careers would begin in a remote Yupik Eskimo village on a desolate, icy, wind-swept island in the Bering Sea.It was 1951. On a whim, Charles "Tod" and his fiancé, Doris Derby, answer...

In childhood, Amy Hallberg receives a dollhouse that-while given with love-carries steep expectations. Forty years later, Amy walks away from her teaching career to forge a new life as a writer. The dollhouse reemerges as a mirror on Minnesota Nice, that familiar culture Amy's...

Pt. Sujan Rane is a professional Hindustani Classical Singer cum Portrait-Painter. He has received long training lasting 30 years from Pt. Phiroz Dastur associated with the Music Department of Bombay University, and a doyen of the well-known singing style Kirana Gharana of Abdul Karim...

Ma was a crafty lady who had been taught well by her father and mother, Elias Samuel Totten and Nancy Jane Bradford Totten. She learned to cook, sew, plow, hoe, pick cotton, do housework, and dry apples and peaches for fried pies. She worked...

Neither a cautionary tale nor a polemic, Men as Friends is about a variety of male friendships and a variety of men. A "coming-of-old-age story," it speaks to an audience of men who love or have loved other men but are too embarrassed to...

Situated next to the Kenyan capital's largest garbage dump, the Nairobi slum of Korogocho might seem like one of the least likely places on the planet where a youth orchestra has found itself a home. And yet, the classical strains of Mozart and Vivaldi,...

Are you a student of Napoleon Hill's classic from 1937 Think and Grow Rich? Has your life or business benefited from the timeless truths of this global classic? Are you ready to embrace and experience foundational steps to success that carry on from generation...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses comes the dramatic and definitive biography of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the history-altering professor turned Civil War hero."A vital and vivid portrait of an unlikely military hero who played a key role in...

A tender and perspective-shifting book that offers a rare level of understanding about the subtle and and no-so-subtle layers of internalized oppression and deep feelings and dilemmas of Deaf people, written by former Deaf teacher Rachel Zemach.This mesmerizing, funny, and disruptive narrative invites you...

TEACH showcases inspiring young adults and the remarkable teachers who celebrate the power of the HUMAN SPIRIT.Every successful urban educator's journey is different/unique. The common characteristic all great teachers possess is the ability to LISTEN to the FEARLESS, TENACIOUS, and DEMANDING voices of the...

A tender and perspective-shifting book that offers a rare level of understanding about the subtle and and no-so-subtle layers of internalized oppression and deep feelings and dilemmas of Deaf people, written by former Deaf teacher Rachel Zemach.This mesmerizing, funny, and disruptive narrative invites you...

"... one of the most delightful and charming books I've read in a long time ..."-Barbara Ferg-Carter, Ed.D., retired Chief of Staff, District Superintendent's Office, DoDEA Mediterranean District"... a joy to read ... documents recent history in an entertaining and inspiring way ... a...

This is the story of a young man's sojourn in the rainforest of Borneo in the late 1960s. Told through letters sent home, the book reveals the life of a small Kadazan village and the relationship that grows between the villagers and the American...

This was my attempt to find a path or purpose in a world that I couldn't make sense of. A documentation of audacious choices that I once hoped would lead me to some kind of dissentient promised land. It's a weird-ass narrative about invigorating...

John C. Donahue was considered a brilliant but difficult artistic genius in American theater in the 70s and 80s. His theater, the Children's Theatre Company and School (CTC), rose to the heights of critical acclaim. It was also a home to more than two...

Are you a student of Napoleon Hill's classic from 1937 Think and Grow Rich? Has your life or business benefited from the timeless truths of this global classic? Are you ready to embrace and experience foundational steps to success that carry on from generation...

The book begins with the life of a young Mexican-American boy from South Texas. Family and pop culture were influences on through high school and college showing the reader who he was and what he experienced. He continues with his experiences teaching at the...

US public schools can do better. Post-pandemic, Harvard researcher Martin West states, "We've had the greatest decline in student achievement in US history. We have to have strategies to address this." 1980's national school change leader Ted Sizer commented, "School reform is like moving...

Award-winning teacher Steve Cwodzinski was never content just imparting the assigned curriculum to his students. He saw in them the need to learn important life lessons as well about values, self-motivation, relationships, inquisitiveness, adventure, and so much more. Using his own struggles with growing...

Part coming-of-age story, part psychological thriller, part philosophical investigation, this unforgettable memoir traces the ramifications of a series of lies that threaten to derail the author's life--exploring the line between truth and deception, fact and fiction, and reality and conspiracy.Sarah's story begins as she's...

After many years of writing nonfiction about handwriting psychology and mystery fiction, I tackled a memoir. This book details my spiritual path, starting with a strict religious background that allowed for no belief in an Afterlife, to the freedom of understanding that there is...

The Journey tells the stories of professional and personal ventures from my mother's Kindergarten homeschooling till post-Doctoral studies and beyond in nine different countries. It is a saga of friendship with so many families and colleagues in diverse cultures, a true anecdote of universal...

The engaging memoir of a legendary president of Wellesley College known for authentic and open-hearted leadership, who drove innovation with power and love. The Claims of Life traces the emergence of a young woman who set out believing she wasn't particularly smart but went...

Imagine moving nearly 80 times and living in almost 20 states before graduating high school. This is the story of a young boy growing up on the road. Shawn D. Congleton shares his account of overcoming his life's challenges, of never settling, that included...

Daniel Freeman's career as a public servant in government and his experiences as an educator are the foundation of this fascinating book. "The House Was My Home" is an intriguing and frequently humorous look behind the velvet curtain of the U.S. House of Representatives...

Where There's a Will, There's a Way Ma was a crafty lady who had been taught well by her father and mother, Elias Samuel Totten and Nancy Jane Bradford Totten. She learned to cook, sew, plow, hoe, pick cotton, do housework, and dry apples...

A BLACK FIRST is the story of an African-American, Black, Negro, colored man who weathered the storms of racism and bigotry and became a prominent educator in the State of New Jersey among its most powerful leaders for a significant period of time. The...

El Curso de la Raza: The Education of Aurelio Manuel Montemayor tells the story of Chicano activist and self-described fronterizo Aurelio Manuel Montemayor, whose dual identities as an educator and political organizer informed his hitherto little-known role in developing a course, or curso, that...

This book chronicles the professional life of a career-long, inclusive educator in New York City through eight different stages in special and general education. Developing a new approach to research as part of qualitative methodology, David J. Connor merges the academic genre of autoethnography...

The Legacy of John Holt contains sixteen portraits of a radical teacher and writer whose ten books and work influenced schoolteachers and homeschoolers to help children learn in their own ways.Written by friends, colleagues, and homeschoolers who knew Holt personally, this book sheds new...

Why is Stephen Girard, a figure from late Colonial America, important today? As a teenager, he left home in Bordeaux, France with meager funds and went to sea as a merchant marine, following his family's tradition. In early summer, 1776, he landed in Philadelphia...

He is one of the great voices in African-American history: Booker T. Washington rose from a boyhood in shackles in West Virginia-he was eight when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution freed all slaves in 1865-to the status of national hero. In this autobiography...

The world watched......as a teacher flew into space. Do you remember where you were when Christa McAuliffe died? She was a wife, Mother and Teacher and the first civilian to fly into space but Christa's dream tragically ended on a cold January day with...

Letters written between 1852 and 1868, vividly describe the overland journey and excitement of settling in the evolving California mining towns of Fiddletown and Volcano in the Sierra Nevada foothills. A native of Vermont, Dennis Townsend marveled at the wonders of California, writing about...

The miracles that took place in Homeroom 109 were astounding. Widespread student salvations, healings, and deliverance occurred. Spiritual battles were fought and won as school policies were changed to allow a Christian club and prayer at the flagpole. Even my fellow teachers, administrators, and...

Southern Conference on African American Studies Inc. C. Calvin Smith Book Award Between Washington and Du Bois describes the life and work of James Edward Shepard, the founder and president of the first state-supported black liberal arts college in the South. Arguing that black...

He was handed a terminal diagnosis. The way he faced it would make him immortal...Tishomingo County, Mississippi, 1985. David Lee Herbert was passionate about coaching high-school football. But one night driving the team bus home from a game, he came upon an accident that...

Dr. Thomas Benson III is on an extraordinary journey in life and is a man of many accolades with a story worth telling. From being a husband, father, son, and brother to being a longtime educator and mentor, and former athlete, Dr. Benson III...

A Heart of Giving chronicles the life of J.D. Oliver-his extraordinary quest for learning, his career in education and the space industry, and the influences and events instrumental to his success. Navigating life as an African American man born in rural Texas in the...

Daniel Freeman's career as a public servant in government and his experiences as an educator are the foundation of this fascinating book. "The House Was My Home" is an intriguing and frequently humorous look behind the velvet curtain of the U.S. House of Representatives...

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the young American student Daniel Willard Fiske left college to embark on a sojourn in Denmark and Sweden that would eventually lead, in 1879, to a lengthy visit to Iceland. By then, Fiske had become Cornell University's...

Tony Buzan achieved global fame as the inventor of Mind Mapping, a technique for note taking and creative ideas which has transformed educational theory and practice around the world. In the course of his career, promoting Mental Literacy and the belief that Genius is...

Edward Thring on EducationEdward Thring (1821-1887), who founded the Headmasters' Conference of prominent schools in Britain in 1869, was the best-known headmaster of his generation.Formed by a nature-loving childhood in rural Somerset, survival in the notorious Long Chamber at Eton, a fellowship at King's...

Never Without Honor features essays written in Memory of Ben H. Procter, a beloved mentor and friend who taught many people most of what they know about the practice of history, and even more about life. Historians, particularly those who practice their craft through...