How DO we measure whether one fails or succeeds? 
I have always thought of good classrooms as safe places to fail—students and adults. I expressed this back in the fall of 2008 when I wrote "Rethinking the 'F' Word."
Having spent 11 years teaching in junior boarding schools, I fell in love with the book Spud. It is a delightful young adult book filled with laugh-out-loud humor. Author John van de Ruit tells of 14-year old Spud's struggle into adolescence. The setting is a boys' boarding school, which is located in South Africa during its 1990 break from apartheid. Also, if you enjoy the music from the play Oliver, Spud plays the lead in his school play, and you can follow the challenges he faces along with the wonderful Dickens characters.
I loved the front page NYTimes article "In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores." Here is the sentence that caught my attention: 
I was first introduced to the concept of brain plasticity when I read JoAnn Deak's Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. And the work of Carol Dweck and her book, Mindset, talk about the idea that intelligence can grow. For me, both authors helped to dispel the myth that the brain is "hard-wired" and unchangeable.
Independent Teacher is an excellent resource for teachers.
