Letters to a Young Teacher | 
|  | | | Title: | Letters to a Young Teacher | | Author: | Jonathan Kozol | | Publisher: | Crown | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 21 August, 2007 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0307393712 / 9780307393715 | | List Price: | $19.95 | | You Save: | $6.38 | | Amazon Price: | $13.57 | |
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Product Description
In these affectionate letters to Francesca, a first grade teacher at an inner-city school in Boston, Jonathan Kozol vividly describes his repeated visits to her classroom while, under Francesca’s likably irreverent questioning, he also reveals his own most personal stories of the years that he has spent in public schools.
Letters to a Young Teacher reignites a numberof the controversial issues Jonathan has powerfully addressed in recent years: the mania of high-stakes testing that turns many classrooms into test-prep factories where spontaneity and critical intelligence are no longer valued, the invasion of our public schools by predatory private corporations, and the inequalities of urban schools that are once again almost as segregated as they were a century ago.
But most of all, these letters are rich with the happiness of teaching children, the curiosity and jubilant excitement children bring into the classroom at an early age, and their ability to overcome their insecurities when they are in the hands of an adoring and hard-working teacher.
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Customer Reviews:
• Must Read For First Year Teachers 28 May, 2008
Jonathan Kozol's Letters to a Young Teacher provides a rare glimpse into the trials and victories faced by a first year teacher in an urban elementary school. Kozol and Francesca have lively dialogue through a series of letters written throughout Francesca's first year as a teacher. Kozol draws on decades of experience to provide hope when Francesca is struggling and cheers her on during times of success. This book is a must read for young teachers venturing into the field of urban education in the United States..
- Reviewed by customer ID: A8S9YP14D6517
• The Joy Of Looking 02 June, 2008
Kozol has tapped into the narcissism of modern teachers and their weird regard for themselves. Down at the "Teach for America" farm, the young Ivy Leaguers get the straight talk missing from the likes of Kozol. Teaching is a degraded profession, to be compared to bus driving and custodial work both in pay and in status. In fact, smart administrators now call teachers "education workers," just to take them down a notch or two. They are sick of the uppity types who think their jobs are important. Nobody respects them. Counselors tell it like it is: Get in, treat it like the Peace Corps, don't stay long enough for it to destroy your reputation. Put it on your resume and apply for law school. Spend the rest of your life telling people you miss the kids. Kozol has got all sorts of words of wisdom for the sad sacks who follow him into the playgrounds of the inner cities, but the bottom line is that his words support the status quo, where kids do as they like, while parents and administrators work together to make sure the teachers and not the kids get blamed for every failure. The only schools in America that have ever worked are those that kick out the brats who won't follow directions. Those are the schools to which the Roosevelts, the Bushes and the Clintons send their kids.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2JXAQ92WYPAAR
• Tells It Like It Is 27 June, 2008
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AMSTYJPVRURIJ
• Enjoyed By Tcnj's 2008 Urban Teacher Academy 12 July, 2008
Forty-six high school juniors who aspire to become teachers read Letters To A Young Teacher during the 2008 Urban Teacher Academy (UTA) at The College of New Jersey. Our students found many of Jonathan Kozol's insights and experiences very helpful to their understanding of how teachers impact the lives of children. They were inpsired by several heartfelt sentiments and suggestions that Mr. Kozol gave to Francesca, a new teacher confronted by the challenges of the urban classroom. Some of our students reacted that Mr. Kozol rambled in some of his descriptions while others found some of the terminologies in this book complex. On the whole, however, our UTA students enjoyed and highly recommended this book. They plan to read other books by Mr. Kozol who is clearly one of our nation's most accomplished educational authors.
Laurence R. Fieber
Program Coordinator
The Urban Teacher Academy
The College of New Jersey
- Reviewed by customer ID: A36DPW9THFC8YG
• Thought-provoking In Places 25 April, 2008
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.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AT0B86GMT7IYU
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