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Book Reviews

Review: Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive b Dr. Howard Hendricks

I’m late to the game on this book. I stole it in a preachers’ Dirty Santa Gift Exchange in 2011. I finally got to dig into the book a few weeks ago.

Hendricks offers seven “laws” of teaching in a helpful acrostic: teacher.

The Law of the Teacher: If you stop growing today, you stop teaching [effectively] tomorrow.

The Law of Education: How people learn must determine how you teach.

The Law of Activity: Maximum learning is always the result of maximum involvement.

The Law of Communication: To truly impart information requires the building of bridges.

The Law of the Heart: Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart.

The Law of Encouragement: Teaching tends to be most effective when the learner is properly motivated.

The Law of Readiness: The teaching-learning process will be most effective when both student and teacher are adequately prepared.

Hendricks challenges you to consider how you could improve in each of these areas. As a teacher, challenge yourself to continuously refill and refuel. Make sure that you’re thinking about the people you’re working with—and not just imagining clones of yourself. Give people an opportunity to prepare and to invest. That investment will pay off in the end.

The book is short and quick—less than 150 pages. I’d recommend a copy for every teacher in your organization!

If you’d like to see the video lectures on which the book was based, you can watch them here:

Or if you’d like to see a slideshow presentation overviewing some key concepts, here’s one I found online for your viewing pleasure:

Seven Laws of Teaching from J C