Make Me!: Understanding and Engaging Student Resistance in School (Youth Development and Education) - Softcover

Eric Toshalis received his Bachelor of Arts, Teaching Credential, and Master of Education degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara; a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School; and a Doctorate in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is the coauthor, with Michael J. Nakkula, of Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators (Harvard Education Press, 2006) and its companion Website, Understanding-Youth.com. He is on the faculty of the Teacher Education Department in the Graduate School of Education and Counseling at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where he directs the Summer Middle Level/ High School M.A.T Program and teaches courses in adolescent development and classroom management.

For over two decades, Eric has served public education in a variety of roles, including middle and high school teacher, coach, mentor teacher, union president, community activist, teacher educator, curriculum developer, researcher, author, professor, and consultant. His primary focus has been to study and practice what it takes to ensure that students flourish in school, particularly those students who are often marginalized by mainstream practices and contexts. He received the Human Relations Award by Santa Barbara County for his antiracist efforts at his middle school, was recognized as Teacher of the Year by his school district, and was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching by Harvard College. He consults with educators, nonprofits, and after-school professionals across the country. For more information, please visit EngagingResistance.com.

In this groundbreaking book, Eric Toshalis explores student resistance through a variety of perspectives, arguing that oppositional behaviors can be not only instructive by also productive. The focus of teachers’ efforts, Toshalis says, should be on reading rather than “managing” adolescent behavior and responding to it in developmentally productive and culturally responsive ways. Toshalis effectively synthesizes theory and research with vignettes of interactions among educators and students to show the possibility, rather than pathology, in student resistance.
 
“With poignance and skill, Toshalis shepherds educators away from yearning fro prescriptive classroom management heuristics to spaces where they embrace the ‘remaking’ of themselves in their journey to serve, build, and respond to the humanity of students. Make Me! is a pre-service and in-service teacher education gem that will surely improve the way classroom management is taught, understood, operationalized, and practiced.” — H. Richard Milner IV, Helen Faison Endowed Chair of Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh
 
“Eric Toshalis offers a research-based, humanistic, and enlightened perspective and alternative that every school counselor, teacher, and administrator should read.” — Angela Valenzuela, professor, educational policy and planning program, University of Texas at Austin
 
“Toshalis bears witness to the charged relationships between teachers and adolescents, making sense of the frustrating dynamics of resistance through a range of thoughtful perspectives. His smart, empathic, and actionable synthesis breathes new life into the national conversation about school and classroom culture.” — Kathleen Cushman, cofounder, What Kids Can Do
 
Eric Toshalis is on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education and Counseling at Lewis & Clark College.