Product reviews for Botheredness®

How can we get children interested and invested in what we’re trying to teach them? It’s a question that cuts to the very core of what teachers do, and one that Roberts endeavours to tackle at length here. In his telling, the ‘botheredness’ of the title refers to ‘classroom/institution-level monkey-giving’ that teachers should want to see students reciprocate. What follows is a cornucopia of rich ideas for attaching metaphorical jump leads to your lessons via strategies, ideas and techniques informed by Roberts’ own secondary teaching career, but also from the primary phase and special education. The tone throughout is that of a kindly, lively and often mischievous, yet supportive voice in the staff room, barrelling through the meaning and utility of phronesis one moment, before dropping a neat pop culture reference or wry anecdote in one of the book’s many entertaining footnotes the next. Highly recommended.