I picked this book up after reading an ask.metafilter.com post about teaching methods. Overall, there was little new to me here, though there was much codification of what I knew intuitively. That was was helpful, as it says to me, yes, you are going about it the right way.
So, some of the guidance includes clarity and preparation: make sure you know your material, know how it will be split up and can present it in a clear manner. Another is patience with those who you are teaching, as all topics are not equally understandable to all students. A final one (though not of the complete list) is to lead the students to discovery and stimulate their curiosity by enjoying the subjects and the presentation and by staying dynamic in the class.
Highet present these pieces of advice in an appealing way, using personal anecdotes, some findings of studies and experiences of others (including well-known writers). It gave a dynamic presentation of the information, but caused me to lose the thread of the discussion in some cases.
This is a book to take notes from and is definitely not written int he modern self-help manner with the outline dominating. While such a structure might be helpful in this book to communicate the points, there would be much lost from the dynamism. The book would do well with a summary chapter that gives the details in an abridged form for later reference, as was done in How to Read a Book with much success.
While I won't look to own a copy of this book, I may come back to it again for reference.
