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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
Both of my parents went back to school to get their masters in education a few years ago. Besides having to help them with their term papers, they shared some of the books that they had to read for their classes with me. This was one of them. Its a book about a Harvard/Columbia educated middle school teacher in the mid 1960s. After asking too many questions at his previous school, Herbert Kohl is punished by being reassigned to a school in Harlem. He encounters a very diverse and unruly classroom when he gets there. The book chronicles how he figured out, through trial and error, ways to get through to each of his students. The book does an amazing job of showing how a teacher is a witness to and part conductor of the amazing changes that happen within their students throughout the year. In the end, since this is a real story, most kids do not turn out well. But it does give you hope and gives a much needed expression for the depth of what it can mean to be a teacher. After reading this book I heard a discussion on NPR about whether teaching has changed/improved over the years. A person in the audience asked the question: "After reading Herbert Kohl's 36 Children there was an army of young people who wanted to turn things around in education. Its been forty years since then and nothing has changed." With that comment I think this book also tells the story of how desperate the need for change really is.
