USM’s Jeremiah Conway Publishes Book for Teachers; Reading & Booksigning Takes Place at USM on March 21

While debates rage about cuts to school funding, performance-based pay for teachers and the value of a humanities degree over a technical degree, USM Professor of Philosophy Jeremiah Conway’s new book cuts through the rhetoric to the heart of the matter: how teaching transforms the lives of students and teachers.

 “The Alchemy of Teaching: The Transformation of Lives” now available from Sentient Publications, should be a required reading in all introductory college courses according to a USM senior. Each of Conway’s seven chapters are devoted to a particular student—the gifted transfer student who dissolves in tears during a discussion about Plato’s “Republic”; the shy student unable to find anything at all to say about Dicken’s “Hard Times” finally coming through at the last moment with a powerful presentation; the senior citizen determined to finish her semester after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor—who were influenced by Conway and have influenced the way he teaches. 

Author and educator Parker J. Palmer wrote, “This book is for teachers at all levels who are hungry to be reminded that teaching is a privilege and lives are at stake in it, students who want an education that is more than job training, and all who are concerned with the educator’s role in developing the whole person.”  Learn more.