Harry and Rosemary Wong 2010 Brock Prize Nominees

 

Teachers. On a daily basis, within our educational system, no one has a more significant impact on the education of young people around the world than the classroom teacher. And no one has had a more significant impact on those teachers than Harry and Rosemary Wong, authors of the most recognized book in education, The First Days of School: How to Be An Effective Teacher.

The long-term benefit of Harry’s and Rosemary’s work has moved into a generational phase. New teachers are coming to school, armed with passion, energy, and their mom’s or their grandmother’s copy of First Days of School.

Harry and Rosemary are teachers, whose lifework is to help other teachers be effective. Research is conclusive that the most significant variable in student performance is having an effective teacher. Their book has sold more copies than any other book in the world of school improvement, giving teachers what they need to plan a successful school year. The tenets of First Days of Schools are used in tens of thousands of classrooms at all levels in thousands and thousands of schools around the world. The First Days of School has endurance, (over thirty years in print) distance (it is in multiple languages and in countries around the world), and prominence (ask any teacher!). It is also a part of an intentional effort on the part of Harry and Rosemary to make a lasting effect on all humanity by teaching the teachers.

What do teachers get from Harry’s and Rosemary’s work ? A practical application of educational research that is well received by those who have the most impact on students and learning, the teachers. Harry and Rosemary defined ‘Classroom Management’ versus ‘Discipline’, changing the field forever and making successful classrooms around the world.

In addition to reading the book (which is just one part of a voluminous system of supports for teachers that Harry and Rosemary have built), over a million teachers worldwide have heard Harry in person. The March 2006 issue of Instructor magazine named him one of the twenty most admired people in education (along with Bill Cosby, Laura Bush, Maya Angelou, et al). Among a litany of awards, he is the winner of the 2009 Horace Mann League Outstanding Educator Award. Rosemary was one of the first teachers selected to be a Mentor teacher in California. Among her awards and distinctions, she has received the Silicon Valley Woman of Influence Award. Together, Harry and Rosemary fund the “First Days of School Foundation” and have built a school in Cambodia which they regularly visit.

 

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