The Lazy Teacher’s Handbook – New Edition from Independent Thinking Press

How Your Students Learn More When You Teach Less…

Have you ever wondered what would happen in your classroom if you simply stopped teaching?

“In a Guardian survey of more than 4,000 teachers, 82% described their workload as 'unmanageable', with more than three-quarters reportedly working between 49 and 65 hours a week.” Source: Guardian.com

But this doesn't have to be the case! Enter Jim Smith, the laziest (yet still professional) teacher in town. He is a head teacher, education consultant, Independent Thinking Associate, speaker and bestselling author.

It’s more than six years since the bestselling Lazy Teacher’s Handbook was first published and Jim Smith’s Lazy Teaching philosophy has developed significantly in that time. This new expanded edition details Jim’s latest thinking on how to be the best lazy, but outstanding, teacher you can be.

Have you ever wondered what would happen in your classroom if you simply stopped teaching? Over the last few decades the demands of countless education initiatives, not to mention the pressures good teachers put on themselves, have seen so much teaching squeezed into our lessons, it must have squeezed out some of the learning. Maybe if we spent a little less time teaching and gave students a little more time to learn, things would be different.

The Lazy Way can help you get more out of your students and at the same time help you to get your life back. More than just a series of tricks, the Lazy Way is something Jim Smith has put together over years of experience working with all sorts of learners (and teachers) who want their lessons to be different yet still be rewarded with academic success!

It’s more than six years since the bestselling Lazy Teacher’s Handbook was first published and Jim Smith’s Lazy Teaching philosophy has developed significantly in that time. This new revised edition details Jim’s latest thinking on how to be the best lazy, but outstanding, teacher you can be. Every chapter has been revised and some significantly expanded, particularly those on planning, conducting and reviewing lazy lessons. Others have been updated with Jim’s latest tried-and-tested techniques, which all shift the emphasis away from the teaching and onto the learning.

Have you ever wondered what would happen in your classroom if you simply stopped teaching? Over the last few decades the demands of countless education initiatives, not to mention the pressures good teachers put on themselves, have seen so much teaching squeezed into our lessons, it must have squeezed out some of the learning. Maybe if we spent a little less time teaching and gave students a little more time to learn, things would be different. Maybe this would allow us more opportunities to build relationships with the class and develop that all-important rapport with the individuals who might just need us most. Maybe we could even reclaim our Sunday afternoons from planning and marking?

The Lazy Way can help you get more out of your students and at the same time help you to get your life back. More than just a series of tricks, the Lazy Way is something Jim Smith has put together over years of experience working with all sorts of learners (and teachers) who want their lessons to be different yet still be rewarded with academic success. The approach was born out of Jim’s frustration with doing a job he loves but being slowly killed by it in the process. And, as all good psychologists know, if necessity is the mother of invention then frustration is the absent father, and being knackered the grown-up sibling who just won’t leave home.

If you want your students to learn more and you to work less, then The Lazy Teacher’s Handbook provides you with all the arguments and evidence you need. The new edition is packed full of even more easy-to-apply, highly effective strategies (which Ofsted have rated as ‘outstanding’) all with the seal of approval from real students in real classrooms. So, next time someone tells you to get a life, this book will make it possible.

Contents include:

1. Pass Notes
2. Old Fashioned Teaching with a Lazy Twist
3. The Lazy Approach to Lesson Outcomes
4. Structuring the Lazy Lesson
5. The Prepare Phase – Great Lazy Lesson Ideas
6. The Action Phase – Great Lazy Lesson Ideas
7. The Review Phase – Great Lazy Lesson Ideas
8. Marking, Assessment and Feedback RIP!
9. IT – the Lazy Teacher’s Friend
10. Lazy Language that Changes Everything
11. Differentiation Done the Lazy Way
12. Getting the Best from Teaching Assistants – the Lazy Way
13. The Lazy Tutor

Previously published as The Lazy Teacher’s Handbook, ISBN 9781845902896.

‘The Lazy Teacher’ is a registered trademark.

Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.