myEDmatch Blog: Empowering teachers with resources

10 Books for the Education Job Seeker

Each of the following are great reads whether or not you’re in the job market—but if you’re looking for your first or next school home, the ideas found here can help you decide what matters to you and how to find it. They can help you better understand yourself and your workplace preferences, so you end up with the right job for you. 

#1: Start With Why

by Simon Sinek

Sinek’s book (and watch his powerful 2010 TED Talk) explains the simple but profound principle behind the remarkable influence of great leaders, teachers, and organizations: they’re closely connected to their core purpose, or their why.  

Read the book to discover your own why—and thenlet it guide your education job search to increase the likelihood you’ll end up at a school that’s a mission-and-culture fit. 

On hiring with why:

“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”

#2: Drive

by Daniel Pink

Pink’s book, based on four decades of motivation research, turns on its head the popular notion that people are motivated by carrots and sticks and argues instead that three things are at the core of our motivations at work and school: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Understanding what motivates you to teach can help you decide if you’re in the right school environment—one where you feel a great sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and, if you’re not, what to look for in your next school home.

On the importance of a workplace match:

“One source of frustration in the workplace is the frequent mismatch between what people must do and what people can do. When what they must do exceeds their capabilities, the result is anxiety. When what they must do falls short of their capabilities the result is boredom. But when the match is just right, the results can be glorious.”

#3: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success 

by Carol Dweck

Stanford psychologist Dweck explores the effect of fixed and growth mindsets on achievement, arguing that it’s not just talent and skill that predict success, but rather what individuals believe about their own ability to change and grow.

When hiring, school leaders look for evidence of a growth mindset. They want teachers who believe not only that they themselves can improve, but also that all students can achieve great things regardless of challenges. Do you have a growth mindset? If not, how can you develop one? Knowing will help you better understand how to be (or become) the kind of teacher school leaders need most. 

On the personal interpretation of an age-old debate:

“Whether human qualities are things that can be cultivated or things that are carved in stone is an old issue. What these beliefs mean for you is a new one: What are the consequences of thinking that your intellegence or personality is something you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?”

#4: Daring Greatly 

by Brene Brown

Speaking of getting better, Brown—another author with an incredibly moving TED Talk—says the reason many organizations (and people) struggle to improve is because they’ve shut down their mainline to growth: vulnerability. Based on years of research, Brown says that while most people see vulnerability as weakness, it’s actually the birthplace of courage and greatness. 

At the heart of vulnerability in the workplace is a healthy approach to feedback. Brown’s book will have you on the hunt for a school with a “daring greatly” culture where school leaders, colleagues, and even students take part in a feedback loop that benefits all. In interviews, you’ll start asking: How does feedback work here?

On the role of feedback in the “daring greatly” culture:

“A daring greatly culture is a culture of honest, constructive, and engaged feedback. This is true in organizations, schools, and families. … When I asked people why there was such a lack of feedback in their organizations and schools, they used different language, but the two major issues were the same: 1) We’re not comfortable with hard conversations; and 2) We don’t know how to give and receive feedback in a way that moves people and processes forward." 

#5: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? 

by Seth Godin

Godin is unapologetic and feverish in his pitch for a new kind of work and education suited to our creative and knowledge-based economy. To him, it’s critical that we are (and prepare kids to be) linchpins—indispensable employees—instead of the replicable managers and laborers he argues our schools are structured to produce.

You may or may not agree with Godin’s take on things, but it’s worth a quick read to see if you do. It could shape your job search in surprising ways given that Godin, who’s long been a thought leader in business and marketing, is making waves in education as well, even helping to inspire brand-new schools, like this one. (Also a myEDmatch school.)

On the definition of a linchpin:

"A linchpin is an unassuming piece of hardware, something you can buy for sixty-nine cents at the local hardware store. It’s not glamorous, but it’s essential. It holds the wheel onto the wagon, the thinger onto the widget. Every successful organization has at least one linchpin; some have dozens or even thousands. The linchpin is the essential element, the person who holds part of the operation together. Without the linchpin, the thing falls apart.”

#6: The Energy to Teach 

by Donald Graves

Veteran educator Graves’ book is equal parts inspiration and practical advice. Based on extensive interviews with educators, it examines teaching from an angle few do: its effects on personal and professional energy—and how it can be managed with the support of school leaders and colleagues.

The Energy to Teach can help you—whether you’re a veteran teacher, new teacher, or career switcher—consider aspects of teaching and school culture you otherwise might not, like how a school’s curriculum, parent engagement, collegial environment, and even class structures can influence energy. Then you can apply your newfound awareness to the job search, looking for those schools that would likely make more energy deposits than withdrawals.

On identifying the energy rhythms of your life:

“I know that you already have a sense of what takes energy, gives it, and is a waste of time. What you need now are the specifics from your own life in order to chart a different course from the one you know. Awareness that grows out of the specifics of your own situation produces energy. For this reason, you need to know the details of your own experience in order to make some judgements about how to set a personal and professional direction for your life." 

#7: Teaching As Leadership 

by Steven Farr

Teach for America uses Farr’s framework for effective teaching to send its teachers into schools with a single task: get results no matter what. It’s a research-based framework that any teacher can learn from and/or adopt—set big goals, invest students and their families in those goals, plan purposely, execute effectively, continuously increase effectiveness, and work relentlessly.

You don’t have to agree with or strictly practice every one of Farr’s tenets of effective teaching, but these types of skills and attitudes are in high demand from school leaders across the country. A teacher who can get (and prove) results is a teacher who can get a job. 

On the importance of a teacher’s measurable impact:

"For teachers striving to close the achievement gap in low-income communities, quantifying success means defining and measuring how much our students learn. Highly effective teachers recognize that academic achievement  is both a quantifiable indicator of student progress and a key that opens doors to broader … opportunities.”

#8: What’s In Your Kubburd? 

by Munro Richardson

myEDmatch co-founder Richardson shares real-life examples of people who looked within themselves—and used the ingredients in their own “kubburds"— to find meaning and purpose in their lives. He then helps the reader explore his own kubburd in pursuit of the same.

It’s a great, quick read for the education job seeker who’s highly motivated by meaning and ready to apply the "search-inside-your -kubburd” concept to find a job and live a life of meaning and impact.  

#9: Why School?

 by Mike Rose

In this short book, Rose explores the big questions at the root of many education-related debates, including What is the purpose of education? He brings readers in touch with their own (often unexplored) beliefs, so those beliefs can take their rightful place front and center in the job-search process. 

On why our beliefs about education matter:

“It matters a great deal how we collectively talk about education, for that discussion both reflects and, in turn, affects policy decisions about what gets taught and tested, about funding, about what we expect schooling to contribute to our lives. It matters, as well, how we think about intelligence, how narrowly or broadly we define it. Our beliefs about intelligence affect everything from the way we organize school and work to how we treat each other. And it surely matters how we think about opportunity.”

#10: Do What You Are 

by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger

Already a modern classic, the Tiegers reveal to job seekers and career switchers the relationship between personality and career, and then help them discover their own perfect, personality-aligned career. 

Just as in dating, to be a successful job seeker you have to know yourself before you know what you need. Do What You Are helps you get to know yourself—your strengths, weaknesses, and preferences—so you can then customize a job search destined for a happy ending.

On the existence of the right job for you:

“It’s important to recognize that there are as many different paths to career satisfaction as there are happily employed people. There is no one "ideal job” to which everyone should aspire. But there is the ideal job for you. There are an infinite number of variables in the workplace. To achieve career satisfaction, you need to figure out what your preferences are and then find a career that accommodates them.“

Bonuses: Cage-Busting Leadership  and Trusting Teachers With School Success

These recent releases by Rick Hess (Leadership) and Kim Farris-Berg and Edward Dirkswager (School Success) take separate looks at the roles school leaders and teachers play in influencing and determining school success. The former examines examples of maverick-like school leaders who’ve "busted” through structures and regulations to achieve meaningful change at their schools. The latter explores examples of teacher-led schools and asks: What if trusting teachers, and not controlling them, is the key to school success? Together, these reads should give you plenty of food for thought and interview fodder when it comes to school culture and the roles school leaders, teachers—and you!—can and do play in shaping it.

What are your suggestions for great reads during the job search?