New Book Reveals What Great Teachers Do Differently

Nearly everyone can remember his or her favorite teacher -- one that influenced, instructed, and inspired each one of us in life. But, what exactly is it that makes a teacher great?

The Gallup Organization has dedicated some of the country's best education researchers to this question and unearthed a remarkable fact: While their styles and approaches may differ, all great teachers make the most of their natural talents. Here's something else: Great teachers don't strive to be well-rounded. They know that "fixing their weaknesses" doesn't work -- it only produces mediocrity. Worse, it diverts time and attention from what they naturally do well.

Teach With Your Strengths: How Great Teachers Inspire Students (Gallup Press; October 10, 2005) tells the stories of great teachers, many of whom reveal their unorthodox -- and sure to be controversial -- approaches. More than 40 years of research has provided Gallup with common themes among great teachers -- many of which result from rejecting some of the greatest educational fallacies in America today:

• Not everyone can teach: There is innate talent in teaching, and every great teacher embraces that talent.
  
  
• Education and experience aren't always the hallmarks of good teaching: After five years, the majority of mediocre teachers have stopped learning on the job. It is only the great teachers who continue to blossom in the profession.
  
  
• Setting the right expectations is more important than setting high expectations: Great teachers set the right goals for children who are behind their peers and help them to build the skills they need to succeed.
  
  
• Staying flexible is essential: Great teachers don't always stick to the plan, but are willing to make changes and try new lessons to help their students to learn.
  
  
• Getting personal is the best way to reach the hard-to-reach children: Great teachers aren't afraid to show their pride in and care for their students using words or actions - a somewhat unpopular approach in recent years.

Like the very successful and bestselling book before it Now, Discover Your Strengths (authored by Gallup writers in 2001), Teach With Your Strengths offers readers a deeper look at their unique, innate talents, and how to use them to build their strengths as teachers. The book provides access to the Clifton StrengthsFinder, a Web-based assessment that more than 1.5 million people have already used to find out what they do best. The Clifton Strengthsfinder highlights teachers' top five talent themes. Gallup has discovered that when teachers understand and embrace their talents, they stop being good - and start becoming great.

More than a job, teaching is a calling, and Teach With Your Strengths helps educators fulfill the mission of that calling. Through this groundbreaking book, readers will discover their own innate talents as teachers, and they'll learn how to liberate those talents to inspire the next generation of students.

About the Authors

Rosanne Liesveld is Managing Partner of The Gallup Organization's Education Division. She began her career as a music teacher three decades ago, and she has spent the past 20 years consulting with leaders in America's schools. Rosanne played a key role in developing TeacherInsight, Gallup's online talent assessment for educators. She received her master's degree in adult education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and she lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Jo Ann Miller is a Senior Seminar Leader and Engagement Manager for The Gallup Organization's Education Division. A member of the School Sisters of St. Francis, Milwaukee, for almost 50 years, Jo Ann began her more than four decades in educational ministry as a high school teacher and teacher educator. For the past 30 years, with Selection Research, Inc. and Gallup, she has consulted with educators and church leaders throughout the United States and Canada. She received her master's degree in history from Loyola University in Chicago, and she lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Jennifer Robison is a contributing writer to Gallup Press. She frequently writes profiles of global companies and interviews leading experts in business and psychology for the Gallup Management Journal. Jennifer lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

For more information, contact:

Barbara Cave Henricks
Cave Henricks Communications
512-301-8936 or barbara@cavehenricks.com