Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

Education is one of the most parochial of all disciplines, and early childhood education practices are perhaps the most insulated of all.  Accordingly, this examination of teaching in learning in Japanese preschools by Hayashi and Tobin (both, Univ. of Georgia) is especially welcome.  Examining how Japanese preschool teachers act, talk, and think,Teaching Embodied closely follows three practitioners and is based upon extended observations, interviews, and analysis of video recordings of classroom behaviors.  As a result of this detail, the reader is provided an unparalleled understanding of and appreciation for the practices of Japanese preschool teachers.  Organized into seven chapters, the book exploresmimamoru (teaching by watching and waiting), the pedagogy of feelings, the pedagogy of peripheral participation, learning embodied culture, expertise, early childhood education policy as a cultural practice, and the notion of reassembling the cultural.  The book assists readers in thinking about the practices common in preschool settings and imagining alternative ways of doing things.  Rich with photographs, anecdotes, and examples of practice, the book provides a marvelous complement to Carol Anne Wien'sEmergent Curriculum in the Primary Classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia Approach in Schools(2008).Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners; general readers.