Sunday, October 22, 2017

Another Faux Teacher Memoir

It takes two reviewers at the Atlantic-- and


































7 comments:

  1. So to summarize (and I'm agnostic on TFA, neither supporting it nor opposed), this book is simplistic and insulting and that's why you didn't read it?

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    1. James Forman, Jr. and I have written to Peter Greene, and he has done us the courtesy of publishing our response as an addendum to his Oct. 12 post.

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  2. To be fair to the book, it may be the review that is simplistic and insulting. And no, the irony is not lost on me. But hey-- I'm just happy to see you in the neighborhood.

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  3. Sometimes you don't have to read a book to understand that the underlying ideas reflected in a review are just another amateur job. Coming from a fellow drive-by teacher (5 years?) your response is to be expected Rob.

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  4. This review seems overly harsh. Since most people won't be teaching, it's better to have these kinds of narratives than the "Dangerous Minds" one that is mythologized by Hollywood. Maybe if Kuo becomes a judge she will see the faces of her former students instead of derelicts. I'd rather read a book by a 20 year veteran teacher, but that doesn't mean her time was wasted.

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  5. She passed around a picture of the lynching of an African-American to show these African-American students about their history. What is wrong with her?

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    1. She didn't just "pass around" the pictures. She told them that if they didn't look, they'd get zeros.

      So should men force women to look a pictures of rape victims to show women about their history?

      I really don't get the point. I'm sure these kids know their own history (and their present!) far, far better than a privileged person like Kuo. What does forcing them to look do for them?

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