Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese? When you hear this title it doesn’t sound much like a book meant to help teachers improve the quality of their literacy instruction. In fact, this little gem by Dr. Spencer Johnson isn’t about teaching—it’s about learning.

In this book, two mice named Sniff and Scurry and two little people named Hem and Haw head into a maze searching for nourishment and happiness which for them, comes in the form of cheese. The journey is different for each character and when the cheese becomes difficult to find and eventually disappears, each character reacts differently.

In education, we face a constant stream of change in the way of student needs, assessments, administrative changes, and shifts in policy. In the same way that Sniff and Scurry and Hem and Haw deal differently with change, so too, do teachers. Who Moved My Cheese? helps to put change into perspective and forces us to think about the need to adapt and rethink how we deliver instruction. In my busy life, I relish simplicity. This story is a simple and valuable tale that takes less than forty-five minutes to read but leaves you thinking and questioning for hours and days after.