Esmé is a first year teacher at an inner city school in Chicago.  The diary entries contained in the book haven’t been censored for publishing, so it reads as a very authentic look into her perspective.  There are both great victories and terrible defeats, representing the full spectrum of experiences (including some very humorous anecdotes), from a student who stabs a teacher in the back with a pencil, to another student who brings their 2 year old brother to school because there’s no one to watch him at home, to a class yelling “play ball” after the anthem in a very inappropriate (but hilarious) setting, to a class coming together and awing the school with a literature show they put on.  I felt Esmé’s despair and helplessness when considering the situations her students found themselves in, but also her deep pride in their eventual successes.

Working at a university, I am largely ignorant of most of the issues confronting public school teachers, except for those issues relating to educational technology.  This book was very eye-opening in that regard as Esmé’s nemesis throughout the book was the one person who should have given her complete support: the principal.  It was disheartening to read about his repeated meddling over completely irrelevant issues, such as what name Esmé should answer to.  The principal really represents must of what is wrong with public education in this country today.

The hardest part of reading this book is watching the idealism fade away and a near-cynicism replace it, only to see the pride in her students at the end of the book.  About halfway through, I began to worry: was I reading yet another story of a wonderful creative inspirational teacher that would quit after her first year, or third?  According to the Washington Post, half of all teachers quit by their fifth year, so this sort of outcome would not be out of place; in fact, it’s all too common already.

About halfway through the book, Esmé makes the following poignant observation:

“In my opinion, the prefabricated curriculum and board mandates that are concocted to hide [inner classroom workings], can work both ways.  They can be benign suggestions to make talented investors out of teachers.  Or they can make it so people who don’t have anything to share can still work, since their scripts are made up for them.  Nobody really knows which is happening when the teacher closes the door.  At worst, mediocrity.  At best, miracles.”

Have we created a script that anyone can use to “teach?”  I haven’t been able to sleep tonight as I am coming down with some sort of cold, but I think it’s this observation above that will keep me up for just a bit longer.  If you get a chance, especially if you’re a teacher at any level, I highly recommend this book.

Back in August, my MBP developed some hardware issues that required a visit to the Apple store.  The Kansas City Apple Store happens to be on the famous Plaza, and very near to a Barnes and Noble.  So during this time, I ended up spending a large amount of time browsing books at said store.  As I went through the store, I happened to wander over to the science & technology section where my eyes fell upon a book with a very strange title:  “Everything Bad Is Good For You.”  If that wasn’t enough to pique one’s interest, the subtitle would be: “How today’s popular culture is actually makeing us smarter.”

Needless to say (but I’ll type it anyway), I was extremely skeptical.  Never-the-less, it was a provokative enough title for me to pick it up and turn to the first few pages.  The author, Steven Johnson,  begins with a discussion about a precursor to the modern fantasy sports games.  The story was engrossing enough that I went ahead and purchased the book, and once I was home I devoured it.  I just couldn’t put it down.

Johnson describes what he calls “the sleeper curve.”  His basic argument is that popular culture requires an increasingly complex involvement by the consumer to fully enjoy.  He supports his arguments with several specific examples taken from tv shows like “The Bachelor” and “The Sopranoes” and video games like “Zelda.”  I’m not much of a popular culture participant, and was unfamiliar with all three of these, but this did not hinder my understanding of his argument.  While I had started reading the book quite skeptically, by the end, I felt like he had made a good case using the examples that he did.  However, I do think his argument benefited from a selection bias to begin with.

One of my main criticisms is how citations and the bibliography were handled.  There were no in text citations.  The bibliography contained a snippet of the text where the information was used and then the source itself.  It’s a painful way handle sources.  One nice consideration was a section on suggested further reading, however.

Overall, this is a very worth-while book, and while I’m not completely convinced by his argument, I have to agree that Johnson is certainly on to something.  Published in 2005, it is available from Amazon.com, and other retailers.

Other Book Reviews Coming Down the Pipeline:

1) The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

2) The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

3)  Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner

I realize I’m a bit behind the times, especially with gladwell’s books, but I don’t personally know anyone else who has read them.