Most anyone who works in the trenches of education-teachers especially-know that a good deal of our time is spent riding (or whipping) dead horses; doing things that just plain' ol' don't work year after year.

In this short book, a teacher is riding a horse outside of a lil' red schoolhouse when suddenly the horse flops over dead (X's for eyes and tongue sticking out an' everything). A series of people come along to make common, patent suggestions for how to fix the horse problem, including using a bigger whip, letting a more experienced rider give it a try, team-riding and two of my favorites, "how about an Individualized Equestrian Plan (IEP)?" and a clown on stilts who suggests that they "raise the standard on dead-horse riding."

After a dozen or so ideas that clearly wont work because they all focus on the dead horse, a little boy comes in and says simply that if you're riding a dead horse, you need to get off (the teacher is seen in a red convertible merrily zooming away on the last page).

"If You're Riding a Horse and It Dies..." looks like a children's book but clearly has an adult message. It's cute and will no doubt ring true to anyone who's been a classroom teacher for more than, say, 3 days. It's biggest failing, noted by many other reviewers, is that is does nothing but illustrate and put between 2 covers the most common suggestions to improve dead horse riding, none of which have worked in any meaningful, widespread way.

Teachers are like soldiers in the army: we are the ones who do much/all of the gruntwork and we are also most powerless in the entire hierarchy. We can do very little in and of ourselves BY ourselves to affect sweeping change. We know that we're often riding a dead horse, and if anyone would LISTEN to us and take our suggestions seriously, we very well COULD get off the horse and into the lil' red sportscar.

The book makes no suggestions for how to affect change from within, but in fairness, I don't think that's the book's purpose. The book is intended, I think, to be more of an amusement and call to arms than a step-by-step instruction manual for revamping education and eliminating dead horses. Those who are interested in such a thing might do well to check out "The Comfort Trap (or, What if You're Riding a Dead Horse)" by Judith Sills.

I can't justify giving it 5 stars or even really 4 because, IMHO, a book of this sort should offer at least a small, bulleted list of Where To Begin And How To Fix Education. Still, I think it would have some use for beginning Leadership and other Team meetings where those gathered could use it as an amusing way of beginning to discuss how the dead horses of the school can be taken away for a safe burial.

This book consists of exactly eighteen sentences; the title tells the whole story. I thought I was ordering a book that would provide some insights. It does not.

I am a teacher, I get it, and I am not amused. Next time, I will explore the book thoroughly before spending my money.

Too bad I can't assign less than one star.

Those that have given this book poor reviews obviously do not work in public education or have taken the book too seriously. Constructed around the old saying of "don't beat a dead horse" this book illustrates that there comes a time when you must recognize that the proverbial horse is dead and you must move on to a new way of thinking. This book is excellent for staff development and illustrating that it is often important to step back from a problem and think outside of the box. It is a perfect illustration of the old saying "if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got" only with some humorous educational examples. Simple, but to the point.

Those that have given this book poor reviews obviously do not work in public education or have taken the book too seriously. Constructed around the old saying of "don't beat a dead horse" this book illustrates that there comes a time when you must recognize that the proverbial horse is dead and you must move on to a new horse, or in a broader sense, way of thinking. This book is excellent for staff development and illustrating that it is often important to step back from a problem and think outside of the box. It is a perfect illustration of the old saying "if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got" only with some humorous educational examples. Simple, but to the point.