David Tripp

It's the most valuable ounce of gold in the world, the celebrated, the fabled, the infamous 1933 double eagle, illegal to own and coveted all the more, sought with passion by men of wealth and with steely persistence by the United States government for more than a half century--it shouldn't even exist but it does, and its astonishing, true adventures read like "a composite of The Lord of the Rings and The Maltese Falcon" (The New York Times). In 1905, at the height of the exuberant Gilded Age, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned America's greatest sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens--as he battled in vain for his life--to create what became America's most beautiful coin. In 1933 the hopes of America dimmed in the darkness of the Great Depression, and gold--the nation's lifeblood--hemorrhaged from the financial system. As the economy teetered on the brink of total collapse, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his first act as president, assumed wartime powers while the nation was at peace and in a "swift, staccato action" unprecedented in United States history recalled all gold and banned its private ownership. But the United States Mint continued, quite legally, to strike nearly a half million 1933 double eagles that were never issued and were deemed illegal to own. In 1937, along with countless millions of other gold coins, they were melted down into faceless gold bars and sent to Fort Knox. The government thought they had destroyed them all--but they were wrong. A few escaped, purloined in a crime--an inside job--that wasn't discovered until 1944. Then, the fugitive 1933 double eagles became the focus of a relentless Secret Service investigation spearheaded by the man who had put away Al Capone. All the coins that could be found were seized and destroyed. But one was beyond their reach, in a king's collection in Egypt, where it survived a world war, a revolution, and a coup, only to be lost again. In 1996, more than forty years later, in a dramatic sting operation set up by a Secret Service informant at the Waldorf-Astoria, an English and an American coin dealer were arrested with a 1933 double eagle which, after years of litigation, was sold in July 2002 to an anonymous buyer for more than $7.5 million in a record-shattering auction. But was it the only one? The lost one? Illegal Tender, revealing information available for the first time, tells a riveting tale of American history, liberally spiced with greed, intrigue, deception, and controversy as it follows the once secret odyssey of this fabulous golden object through the decades. With its cast of kings, presidents, government agents, shadowy dealers, and crooks, Illegal Tender will keep readers guessing about this incomparable disk of gold--the coin that shouldn't be and almost wasn't--until the very end.

What are the ‘instincts’ of a good teacher? Can they be taught? Good teachers use good techniques and routines, but techniques and routines alone do not produce good teaching. The real art of teaching lies in teachers' professional judgement because in teaching there is seldom one "right answer". This combination of experience, flexibility, informed opinion and constant self-monitoring is not easy to acquire, but in this re-released classic edition of Critical Incidents in Teaching – in print since 1993 and which includes a new introduction from the author - David Tripp shows how teachers can draw on their own classroom experience to develop it. In this practical and unique guide, the author offers a range of strategies for approaching critical incidents and gives advice on how to develop a critical incident file. Illustrated with numerous classroom examples for discussion and reflection, Critical Incidents in Teaching is for everyone concerned with the development of professionalism in teaching. Although aimed at teachers who want to improve their own practice and pass on their expertise to others, it is also part of David’s long term agenda to improve the public status of teaching and to encourage more inductive research in education; he sees classrooms as situations to be explained rather than as places in which to apply theories developed in other disciplines.

What are the ‘instincts’ of a good teacher? Can they be taught? Good teachers use good techniques and routines, but techniques and routines alone do not produce good teaching. The real art of teaching lies in teachers' professional judgement because in teaching there is seldom one "right answer". This combination of experience, flexibility, informed opinion and constant self-monitoring is not easy to acquire, but in this re-released classic edition of Critical Incidents in Teaching – in print since 1993 and which includes a new introduction from the author - David Tripp shows how teachers can draw on their own classroom experience to develop it. In this practical and unique guide, the author offers a range of strategies for approaching critical incidents and gives advice on how to develop a critical incident file. Illustrated with numerous classroom examples for discussion and reflection, Critical Incidents in Teaching is for everyone concerned with the development of professionalism in teaching. Although aimed at teachers who want to improve their own practice and pass on their expertise to others, it is also part of David’s long term agenda to improve the public status of teaching and to encourage more inductive research in education; he sees classrooms as situations to be explained rather than as places in which to apply theories developed in other disciplines.

This title takes the reader on the trail of the most valuable coin in the world its production, theft, undercover dealing, recovery and finally legal sale. In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt commissioned a new design for the Twenty-Dollar Gold piece the Double Eagle.

There are insights of interest and value to all in these pages. This book develops a fresh and insightful approach to the questions of children and television. Drawing on recent work in linguistics and semiotics, Hodge and Tripp analyse the rich and ambiguous messages of television and cartoons and examine the ways in which these messages are interpreted by children. The authors convincingly show that children are sophisticated viewers: they have a shrewd sense of fact and fantasy and are active interpreters of plot.