Product Description

“Kozol’s love for his students is as joyful and genuine as his critiques
of the system are severe. He doesn’t pull punches.”
—Washington Post

Jonathan Kozol’s most delightfully personal and revealing work to date takes the form of warm and friendly letters to Francesca, a young classroom teacher, offering encouragement and guidance and survival strategies for teachers of all ages in our nation’s public schools.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37509 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-05
• Released on: 2008-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307393722
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Forty years ago, Death at an Early Age catapulted Kozol into national prominence as a compassionate yet clearheaded observer of the rotten state of American education. His latest book reviews many of the basic issues he has spent his life exploring through teaching and writing. Here, he cleverly weaves his observations—as well as a thinly disguised biographical memoir—into a series of 16 letters written to Francesca, a first-grade teacher at an inner-city public school in Boston. Overall, the book will delight and encourage first-year (or for that matter, 40th-year) teachers who need Kozol's reminders of the ways that their beautiful profession can bring joy and beauty, mystery and mischievous delight into the hearts of little people in their years of greatest curiosity. But his encouraging words rarely lapse into treacle. In fact, he offers tough observations on American education addressed to a larger audience. His forceful opinions are convincingly argued—most notably, that educational vouchers will deepen divisions between diverse groups in racially decided cities; that middle schools demoralize students and should be abolished entirely; and that the Gates Foundation made a damaging mistake in aggressively funding a small school craze that will reinforce the racial isolation of the students they enroll. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Acclaimed author Kozol began a correspondence with Francesca, a young first-year teacher at an inner-city school in Boston. His letters offer a revealing, heartfelt look at the state of education and his own joy and agony in reporting on it. The letters provoke recollections of his early days as a teacher and, as a reporter, the humbling experience of visiting classes and maintaining relationships with the people on the frontlines of teaching, while he observes and writes. Kozol offers encouragement, advice, reflection, and admiration for all the teachers like Francesca, who pour their souls into their jobs. The letters explore the challenges of teaching in the inner cities: bureaucracies and standardized tests that take the creativity out of teaching; distrustful, defiant children who take away time and attention from those who want to learn; the heartbreaking irony of teaching diversity in schools that are clearly racially segregated. A beautiful book that offers an intimate look at the challenges and joys of teaching and one that will inspire and inform teachers and all those interested in public education. Bush, Vanessa

Review
“Kozol’s love for his students is as joyful and genuine as his critiques of the system are severe. He doesn’t pull punches.”
—Washington Post

“[Charts] the positive tension between his lifelong indignation and the renewable joy of being in the classroom, something essential to all good teaching.”
—Los Angeles Times

“In lovingly supportive letters to a young woman on her first job as a first grade teacher, Kozol brings us heartwarming stories of the magic of kids who delight in words like ‘wiggly’ and ‘wobbly,’ ‘bamboozle’ and ‘persnickety’–and who could resist a child called Pineapple? This remarkable book is a testament to teachers who not only respect and advocate for children on a daily basis but who are the necessary guardians of the spirit. Every citizen who cares about the future of our children ought to read this.”
—Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

“What a wonderful book! Anyone who cares about rebuilding our public education system should read it. I could not put it down!”
—Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education, Stanford University

“This book cuts to the heart of the matter of what it means to be a teacher today. The truth about testing, vouchers and their impact on public schools–it’s all captured here. But here, too, we also experience the exhilaration of putting together lesson plans, the joys of comforting children, and the anxiety of a teacher’s first days in school. Francesca’s journey will leave you hopeful for our nation’s children.”
—Reg Weaver, President, National Education Association

“Jonathan Kozol’s advice to the teacher Francesca shows all the qualities that make him the nation’s wisest and boldest and...

Customer Reviews

Thought-provoking in places
This is a worthwhile read. There are ideas, which, while not exactly new, are refreshing--for example: the assertion that teaching is an art, not a science and that the creativity and personality of the teacher matter (allowing a sort of alchemy to take place). Kozol's comments on teachers' enslavement to standardized tests and to teaching standards in general certainly resonated for me. Having said that, I found the tone of the book occasionally pretentious and the format--only Kozol's letters to the teacher and not the teacher's missives to him---rather forced and artificial. This is not Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, on which, I suspect, Kozol's text is modeled. I think collection of personal essays would have been a more natural fit.

A thoughtful gift for a new teacher
At this writing, this book is averaging four stars in terms of reviews, and I think that's about right. As a high school English teacher, I found some sections--especially those regarding standardized testing and how public education does not address the needs of poor children--quite compelling and validating. However, as another reviewer mentioned, I had difficulty with Kozol's tone at times, which seems just a bit condescending and does not match the acceptance and warmth he alleges to share with children. Well, I suppose there are those of us who get on much better with young people than we do adults. I do appreciate Kozol's wisdom and especially his willingness to toss aside what administrators dictate and teach in a manner that is in the best interest of the children. That is perhaps the most abiding lesson in this book.

Tells it like it is
As one who works with teachers and visits inner city school classrooms on a regular basis, I can say that Jonathan Kozol accurately describes the problems in our schools today. He convincingly demonstrates that "No Child Left Behind" not only fails to promote real, sustainable school reform, but actually supports the forces driving schools (and society) back to segregation and inequality not so different from the time before Brown vs. the Board of Education. At the same time, his letters celebrate the many ways that innovative teachers instill hope and a love of learning in their young charges, despite these conditions. Every teacher would find some value in this book, because practices like the ones Kozol describes are not taught in many schools of education today.