Greater Good Magazine: Favourite Books for Educators

Photo by Kimberly Farmer

Greater Good Magazine online has published a list of “Favourite Books for Educators in 2025”.

Each year the education team from Greater Good Magazine (GGSC) chooses a selection of education books for the years that they deem to be “the most though-provoking, practical, and inspirational”. The selection of books published in 2025 cover topics “such as nature and spirituality in children, neurodiversity-affirming schools, and the power of language, voice, happiness, connection, and inspiration in education”.

The list includes the following eight books, with commentary:

Happy Schools: Placing Happiness at the Heart of Schools, by Romesh Kumar

This book explores the need for a humanizing approach to education, citing the devastating statistics around depression and suicide rates among India’s youth due to pressure to succeed in school. The author weaves in compelling research that connects student and educator well-being to academic success and happiness, or flourishing, within the larger community. Specific chapters of the book dive more deeply into aspects of education systems that may not always appear in discussions about student well-being and happiness, such as inclusion for students with special needs, the ways that Indigenous knowledge and traditional cultural practices can guide well-being initiatives, and how teacher agency and happiness are necessary for happy schools to exist.

Pedagogies of Voice: Street Data and the Path to Student Agency, by Shane Safir, Marlo Bagsik, Sawsan Jaber, and Crystal M. Watson

This book combines stories, reflective questions, and practical strategies, [as] the authors challenge educators to centre students in the margins as they develop curricula and policies.....The authors advocate for teachers to rethink their role as the gatekeeper of knowledge, to challenge traditional systems of top-down curriculum and discipline practices, and to listen deeply to students’ stories. Rather than deciding what students need, the goal for teachers is to uncover students’ rich and diverse cultural capital in order to build classrooms with and for them, with particular attention to traditionally marginalized students whose stories and funds of knowledge are often ignored or silenced.

The Words That Shape Us: the Science-Based Power of Teacher Language, by Lily Howard Scott

Arguing that the “words educators speak in classrooms can have an impact that reverberates for years to come” the book, aimed at elementary school teachers, but widely applicable, offers tools to reframe how educators speak to and about children to develop a more nuanced approach. The book aims to introduce language that helps students feel more comfortable discussing their strengths and weaknesse.

Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education, by Isabelle C. Hau

The author is executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning Initiative, and partners with researchers, schools, and community leaders to study and leverage the latest applications of technology, brain research, and learning sciences. Hau shares examples of schools and community centres that serve as ‘relational hubs’, connecting students, teachers, and (intergenerational) families. Further, she offers rich, research-based examples of meaningful social play and neighbourhood ‘learning landscapes’, including interactive ‘Math Trails’, ‘Storybook Paths”’ and ‘Musical Playgrounds’.

Neurodiversity-Affirming Schools: Transforming Practices So All Students Feel Accepted and Supported, by Emily Kircher-Morris and Amanda Morin

The authors state, “True belonging isn’t about being included in spaces you’d otherwise be excluded from. It’s about feeling welcome from the start.” The book aims to provide a holistic approach to creating schools where all students can be their authentic selves and feel safe and secure to learn. The authors offer a number of entry points for schools to affirm neurodiversity in students. They offer examples of pathways that propose new pedagogical approaches, encourage mindset shifts, and include practical strategies across a number of topics relevant to teaching neurodivergent learners.

Nature and Spirituality During the Early Years, by Ruth Wilson

The book offers a theoretical framework for understand the innate connection between very young children and the natural world, with particular emphasis on the transcendent experiences of awe and wonder. The book draws on research in the fields of biology ecopyschology, and social ecology.

Just Shine! How to Be a Better You!, by Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by Jacqueline Alcantara

The author, an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the USA, who lives with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and tells the story of her mother, Celina, who grew up in Puerto Rico caring lovingly for her sick mother, and how others returned that care to her in her later life. The book provides clear, concrete examples of how prosocial behaviours help to make the world and kinder and happier place. The story ends with the question: “What will you do to make your world shine?”

Reinvigorating Classroom Climate: Everyday Strategies to Inspire Teachers and Students, by Maurice J. Elias

Pulling from decades of research and practical experience, and recognizing the vocational commitment of teachers, the author provides educators with eight approaches, including creating positive classroom and school climates, promoting inspiration and human dignity, fostering students’ intrinsic motivation, and restoring the soul of educators.