1 comments about Terlingua Teacher: The Remarkable Lessons Taught and Learned in a One-room Texas Schoolhouse.

1. 
   Trent Jones' story of his years as a teacher in the tiny one-room school in Terlingua, Texas is inspiring. It tells of Jones' dedication to his students and his efforts to obtain state accreditation for the tiny school in isolated far West Texas.

5 comments about Disguised As A Poem: My Years Teaching at San Quentin.

1. This is an exceptional account, movingly honest and beautifully written. As someone who has also taught in prison, I can attest to the fact that the author has gotten it "right" - the cultural logic by which inmates understand and navigate their world; the ways in which relationships are built and tested; the circulating currency of ideas in prison. And she is one of the very few who have gone inside, empowering inmates to acquire the powerful tools to express their truths. It is a political act of the most genuine, humanistic kind. Bravo!



2. In "Disguised as a Poem," Judith Tannenbaum narrates her experience teaching poetry for four years in the maximum-security prison, San Quentin. The prisoners she taught are fiercely human, use poetry as a shout: "I am here!" Tannenbaum comes to San Quentin with California 60s-radical ideas of universal brotherhood, and is forced to confront not only the prisoners' ambiguous past, but also the humanity of the police guards she has always associated with authority and oppression.

   Needless to say, the experience changed more than a few lives.

   Most of the men found themselves in San Quentin for their involvement in violent crime. During "lockup," in their cells, the men must restrain their emotions, their dreams, their expression of humanity for fear of exposing weakness in the violent environment in which they live. Poetry offers the men a chance to reach out beyond the walls of San Quentin. Through Tannenbaum and the other arts' teachers, the men meet Nobel Prize winners, perform "Waiting for Godot" under the auspices of Beckett himself, and publish their poems for children at risk.

   Tannenbaum must struggle with the men's past actions while reveling in providing an outlet for the men using an art form she adores. She also finds herself in some moments allying herself with the prison administration, with authority, against the prisoners who are dependant on her for emotional release and artistic expression.

   The book shines when relating the poetry of the men, when we witness the blossoming of a caged man on paper. It is then that we connect to these men from our own ambiguous cages-no doubt less confining than iron and steel-and take heart from their actions that we, too, can still soar free.




3. This book takes readers inside a world most of us have never entered: a maximum security prison. But instead of showing the aspects of this world that we're familiar with from movies and TV, we see something different. By telling her own story -- the story of a poet sharing poetry with a particular group of prisoners -- Tannenbaum allows readers to look at our own assumptions about prison, prisoners and what it is to be human.

   This is a very important, and very moving, book.




4. Judith takes the reader into a world where few go willingly and fewer still would expect to find love. Her journey in story form reveals a great deal about herself and how the men she taught retained their dignity and self respect by sharing their thoughts of home, life, and love through poetry. I am not a poet and quite frankly find it difficult to understand many peots, but such is not the case with the works Judith brings forth from a handful of men most of us have written off as losers. Judith proves that love is present in everyone's heart, even those in prison.



5. This book was introduced to me by Judith herself ( I was looking for material for a research paper ) ...Since I am a "starving" student, my mom bought me the book for x-mas, it sat for a few months since I was burnt out on prisons after my major report was done. But two days ago I picked up the book again, and I could no put it down. I have fallen in love with Spoon, Elmo and Judith's words many times over. I am in awe of her writing and her experience. I would hope that someday I could inspire others as she has inspired me. I have written a poem, I will share it with you all in hopes that you will buy this book...

   "I feel as though I am reading a novel...

   Everyonce in a while I stop and

   remind myself the words I have read

   are real."

   Molly R>

4 comments about Invisible Privilege: A Memoir About Race, Class, and Gender (Feminist Ethics).

1. "Invisible Privilege" is a multilayered book that I will enjoy reading more than once. It has the liveliness, humor, and candor of a good autobiography. But instead of merely telling one person's story, the author wears the analytical and critical lenses through which she views our society, to look at her own life -- without apology or mea culpa. She gives up the dearly held privilege of many of us "white liberals" to pretend that, in spite of the impact of race, class, and gender on American life, we somehow wriggled through unscathed, perhaps because of our own "natural" goodness. The author provides funny, poignant, eye-opening examples of how no one can rest on the laurels of being a good person with good intentions in this whirlwind society of ours. She is deepening the discussions of discrimination and exclusion, prejudice and hate, as well as of being human, and I look forward to her next book.



2. A very well-done combination of personal recollection and political insights. The questions of gender, race and class are often presented in an off-putting manner that only appeals to the already committed. Because of the genuiness and the clarity of this book, it can serve as an introduction to these areas for those who still have something to learn about them.



3. If you are entirely committed to viewing human destiny almost exclusively in terms of group identity, you will love this book. Rothenberg cheerfully acknowledges that she has no pretentions toward disinterested inquiry in her college courses or in her writing. She procedes from the assumption that racism and sexism are the underlying conditions of life in the United States and sets out to illustrate this. The book is an amusing compendium of the leisure-class totalitarian orientation and quasi-Marxiast group think that has become the status quo in American "higher" education.



4. I have to agree with the review before me, this book is purely a Marxist totalitarian charade with extremely one sided analogies.
   To Paula Rothenberg; if you hate the U.S.A. and freedom, then leave it for a communist country!

3 comments about Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents (ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education).

1. Even though this is essentially a research book it is very well
   written and contains a solid presentation of the leadership process. The chapter summarizing leadership research is the best I've seen and provides an original framework around which to read the case studies. There has been a lot of academic research on leadership over the last twenty years and much of it is incomprehensible and so specific as to be relatively useless but the author's original synthesis of this work
   is excellent. The cases studies are not only very entertaining but they follow this basic leadership framework developed in the theory chapter. The chapter on the University as a complex organization is also very good and highly readable. I recommend the book both as an essay on leadership and as an analysis of university presidency.



2. I'm the head of a small, non-profit organization so I was not sure whether this book would actually be of much interest. But as one of the reviewers on the book-jacket writes, this book should be very useful to people outside universities as well. It is well-written and very engaging. What makes it especially appealing is the author's ability to take "academese" and convert it into understandable English. His chapter on leadership is one of the most original I have seen and the discussion of "resiliency" is fascinating. He also presents six detailed case studies and each is written essentially to stand alone. The first three chapters lay out a conceptual blueprint and this makes each case easier to interpret. His use of compelling anecdotes and well-researched historical passages really bring the cases to life. Highly recommended.



3. Professor Padilla has written a book on the characters and operating principles of a collection of exemplary academic leaders. While this volume is well researched, it exceeds the usual academic exercises in that it is eminently readable, insightful and human. The instructive lessons are clear and generally applicable to students of business management.

1 comments about The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914 (Civil War America).

1. While some in the Civil War community complain of "Chamberlain fatigue," it is difficult to gripe about this marvelous new collection of postwar correspondence from one of the most articulate officers on either side of the conflict.
   
   Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain survived the Civil War - including a horrible wound at Petersburg - to become one of Maine's most prominent citizens. His postwar career included four terms as governor of Maine, a stint as president of Bowdoin College, numerous business enterprises, and perhaps most importantly, many years as a writer and lecturer on his Civil War experiences.
   
   The correspondence included by editor Jeremiah Goulka covers nearly every aspect of Chamberlain's personal and professional life. Chamberlain's heartfelt letters to his family, especially those to his wife Fannie, reveal him to be a loving, thoughtful husband and father. His relationship with Fannie, stormy and difficult though it was for many years, survived numerous crises until Fannie's death in 1905.
   
   Chamberlain's Civil War experiences transformed him, and his separation from the army often left him feeling restless. In 1870, Chamberlain wrote to the King of Prussia and offered his services in Prussia's war with France. In 1898, Chamberlain contacted the Secretary of War to volunteer for the Spanish-American War. Even with all his postwar positions and projects, Chamberlain never quite filled the space in his soul left empty by the end of the Civil War.
   
   Critics of Chamberlain, in his lifetime and in our own time, claim that he inflated his role at Little Round Top in an attempt to horde the glory of that important engagement. At least one letter included in this volume refutes this criticism. In a January 1910 letter to Union veteran and author Oliver W. Norton, Chamberlain says of his brigade commander, Strong Vincent, "He was a noble man, and I have not known an abler commander in his grade. Nothing could exceed his skill and energy in taking the position on Little Round Top and the confidence he inspired in his subordinates. To this the result of the fight on the left at Round Top is very largely due [emphasis added]."
   
   The correspondence also clarifies an often incorrectly reported fact concerning the July 1913 fiftieth anniversary reunion at Gettysburg. Chamberlain, while he visited Gettysburg in May as a member of the planning commission, did not attend the July reunion. Chamberlain's doctor strongly urged him not to go due to his declining health, and he stayed behind in Maine.
   
   Rather than being castigated for his prolific eloquence, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain deserves the timeless thanks of everyone who studies the Civil War. Jeremiah Goulka deserves thanks as well, for his skillful editing, and for giving us a deeper understanding of a genuine American hero.

5 comments about Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers (PB) (Readings in Educational Thought).

1. This book has the potential to revolutionize teacher education. Null and Ravitch have put together some very powerful essays that have a lot to teach us about curriculum, teacher education, philosophy, and the history of education. Everyone involved in teacher education must read this book. I am a teacher, and every teacher who cares about our profession also should read this book as well. And the price is reasonable, too--especially for a 650 page book.



2. This is a very important book for people interested in American education. The book helps us to move beyond the sad complaining that goes on these days when the topic of public education is brought up. Anytime education comes up among my friends, all that anyone does is complain. Our situation is certainly bad, but this book will actually help us to improve things. The heroes, as they call them, that Diane Ravitch and J. Wesley Null have included in the book have some very important things to say to us. They fought against the nonsense that has done so much damage, but they also did more than complain. The book includes some real ideas for helping us to move beyond griping to making things better by giving us more teachers who are well-prepared to teach in today's difficult culture. Read this book, and I say suggest it to your friends, especially if they are in education. Any book that Ravitch is involved with should be taken seriously by people who care about education.



3. J. Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have co-edited a superlative book of the best of those " forgotten heroes " who, many years ago, established the great tradition of teaching teachers. Null and Ravitch have crafted the selected writings of William C. Bagley, Charles De Garmo, William Torrey Harris, Isaac Leon Kandel,Charles Alexander McMurry, William C. Ruediger and Edward Austin Sheldon. If you have never heard of these names, then it is time that educators are exposed to their seminal ideas. If you are familiar with their ideas and conceptions, then this text will reinvigorate and reinforce the importance of their work and theorizing. These authors have a clear, pristine vision of what education could and should be. These authors have crafted their essays into invigorating, stimulating, energizing monuments to the work of pedagogy. In these essays, one is exposed to " marvelous alliteration of the liquid consonants" as well as to " the beauty of their grandeur or the nobility of their underlying thoughts". This book should be read three times- once for the intellectual and historical understanding of their work, once for the stimulating writing style and once to understand the foundations of educational thought and the importance of educational theory and history. In this age of " No Child Left Behind" we need to emphasize the importance of not leaving any " Forgotten Heroes of American Education " behind. Parents whose children are considering the teaching profession may want to present this book to their high school or college offspring to provide them with a foundation and understanding of American education and those who sculpted the basics of American teacher training. This book is a superlative example of "the best of some of America's greatest thinkers as well as teacher trainers". It is hoped that this book will enable educators to keep alive the thoughts of Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart and Froebel in the current educational climate. The profession owes a sincere " thank you " to Null and Ravitch for this impeccably edited, thought provoking text.



4. J.Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have, through compiling this masterful collection of readings, provided a wonderful resource for those of us who want to fundamentally change teacher education in the United States. Since the early part of the 20th Century, what would later become colleges of education, have been dominated by the often-misapplied progressive theories associated with John Dewey. The results of this intellectual dominance include a lack of respect for academic subject matter, a fuzzy romanticism focused upon teachers as societal change agents, and a lowering of standards for aspiring teachers. Progressive orthodoxy so dominates education colleges that future teachers often don't even learn the counter arguments the "forgotten heroes" of this book so effectively make.
   
   Anyone who is involved in the preparation of teachers and is a proponent of such common-sense notions as the paramount role of academic content in teaching, high standards for students, and the teacher's responsibility for academic and moral classroom leadership, should buy this book. Although the most recent essay was penned in 1960, the arguments of these intellectual opponents of the then-emerging progressive conventional wisdom are, for the most part, as fresh today as when written. Carefully reflect upon the essays of such master teachers and scholars as William C. Bagley and Issac L. Kandel who are included in the anthology. Then, if you are involved in teacher education make sure your students experience the genuine intellectual diversity represented in the contents of this book. This is a useful tool in the mounting effort within many education schools to end the progressive intellectual monopoly.



5. ¨Education, true education, should liberate"
   
   By Richard K. Munro MA, Renshaw Fellow UVA 2004
   
   Null, Wesley and Diane Ravitch, Eds. Forgotten Heroes of American Education , Information Age Publishing, Greenwich Connecticut, 2006
   
   
   
   America, all is not lost. In 1987 we had The Closing of the American Mind by the late Allan Bloom followed by E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, Diane Ravitch's classics Left Back (2000) and The Language Police (2003). 2006 gave us John Dewey and the Decline of American Education by Henry Edmondson and now FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION edited by Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch. Here we have essays -some published for the first time- from great American educators of the so-called "Traditionalist/Essentialist" school such as William Bagley, Isaac Kandel, Charles DeGarmo, and Charles Alexander McMurray among others, including the forgotten essays of the John Dewey in which Dewey criticizes the excesses of some of his colleagues of the liberal-romantic-progressive school. Here, in FORGOTTEN HEROES we have great appeals to the traditional foundations of wisdom, learning and education but also appeals to her scientific, cultural as well as her authentically progressive foundations. These thinkers have much to say to 21st century America about curriculum, teacher training, the foundations of a proper educational philosophy, student discipline, and the purpose of formal schooling in a free society. Ravitch and Null have added splendid short biographies and commentaries not to mention a list of recommended readings.
   Much of the book is dedicated to the vital and still pertinent essays of William Bagley. Like Victor Davis Hanson, Bagley was no mere ivory tower intellectual; he worked in agriculture and owned his own farm. Bagley had wide experience as a classroom teacher, a principal and superintendent. Bagley favored a free liberal education for all Americans regards of their IQ or future occupation. In "The Army Tests and Pro-Nordic Propaganda" Bagley opposed the determinism, extreme social Darwinism and deep racial supremacy of the 1920's as inhumane, un-American and anti-democratic. Bagley's essays CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TEACHING, THE IDEAL TEACHER and EDUCATION AND UTILITY are literary jewels, well-crafted, lucid and informative. Bagley was right to recognize the profound anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism in liberal/romantic/progressive theory. Bagley is a teacher's teacher: he respects the craft of teaching. Bagley understands that teaching is above all a calling and an act of service, sacrifice and love. Teaching could never be an entirely mercenary profession, though a man would say today taking a "vow of poverty" might be going too far! Bagley was one of the first educators to be concerned about the 'blob' the growing non-teaching bureaucracy which considered the classroom teacher to be at the bottom of the profession. Ever the supporter of high educational standards Bagley made a very strong case that the fundamental factor in academic excellence was based on the quality of the classroom teacher.
   Isaac Kandel, another of the "forgotten heroes" made his "Address at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University" in 1940, unpublished until this volume. In this age of terror this address is very timely. In it Kandel calls for an educational philosophy with integrity based on deep gratitude for the practical wisdom, Natural Rights philosophy of the Founders as well as the true roots of the "dignity of the individual", America's Judeo-Christian heritage. Only by recurring to fundamental principles, Kandel believed, could we hope to preserve our free society. Kandel wrote "The basic principles of democracy are rooted in the religious traditions of Jew and Christian alike." "Man ....cannot live on negation...he needs values that have stood the test of time." "Education, true education, should liberate; it should cultivate the genuinely free man, the man of moral judgment, of intellectual integrity.....intolerance and hatred are the foundations of the new [ totalitarian] ideologies; Love thy neighbor as thyself is the injunction of the Hebrew prophets and of the Golden Rule." These are just some of the gems from Isaac Kandel on a rigorous curriculum: "It is foolish to except a child to grow up in a right social direction along the lines of his own felt wants as it is to expect a man to find his way in unfamiliar territory without a map or a compass. Organized subject matter constitutes that map..." Kandel on low standards: "the harm done American education by the cult of...superficiality is incalculable." Kandel warns that the disunity in America could come again if we fail to provide an education "to inculcate faith in the ideals of democracy....without well-defined content, [there is]... inevitably... a negation of ideals and faith... a repudiation of the inherited forms of culture and of humanity without which the surface changes in the stream of life are mistaken for the waves of the future." Kandel's essay on "Character Formation" (1959) is one of many outstanding contributions. According to Kandel, an important aim in education throughout history is the ideal of character formation. Kandel writes: "with the declining influence of religious institutions....with the extension of mass media...the task of character formation becomes more and more difficult... all these conflicting influences may be added a certain relaxation of standards, both intellectual and disciplinary...the 'get by' attitude." Kandel is so cultivated and yet so moving and so lucid that for his essays alone FORGOTTEN HEROES would be worth it.
   Recently I was told the story of a well known professor of education who said: "It doesn't matter what they [teachers] know...All that matters is how they teach." In other words process counts not knowledge, not virtue, not wisdom! So it is true the Deweyite Sophists have taken over the academy particularly in "Teacher Ed"! This is just one true life story of the doctrinaire liberals who dominate in Teacher's Colleges. There Deweyite learning or doctrine -by this I mean the Romantic-progressive school -a traditionless tradition- is practically an established religion. As Hanson, Thornton and Heath have written previously in BONFIRE OF THE HUMANITIES; "... the American academic culture is one of the most glaring failures and embarrassments of modern society itself."
   The thesis of FORGOTTEN HEROES is that the tradition of teaching and learning going back to Plato and Aristotle represented by Bagley, Kandel and others has never been extinguished despite the long 20th century ascendancy of Dewey's Liberal-Romantic-Progressive school. The whole point of Bloom, E. D. Hirsch, Null and Ravitch is until teachers improve in quality, and schools improve in discipline and organization all the money in the world will do no good. Disoriented, demoralized American teachers, unprepared by barely relevant teacher education programs, crushed beneath the wheel of a bloated, misguided bureaucracy, unsupported by their own administrations, may have become `weak sisters' (and brothers) in, reading, writing and the ACADEMIC disciplines. Bagley, Kandel and the other FORGOTTEN HEROES knew that well-educated classroom teachers were crucial to the survival and success of the American Republic. FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is truly splendid anthology for specialists or for the general reader. It is not an exaggeration to say FORGOTTEN HEROES is a book that ought to be familiar to every concerned school teacher and wise administrator, every involved parent and thoughtful citizen and every dedicated civic and community leader.
   
   June 22-July 2 2006

1 comments about A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude.

1. I have had a soft spot for Jonathan Williams' photographs for many years, since I first saw one of his wonderful photos of poets' graves in a long forgotten magazine. I was one of the lucky ones who got to "know" Williams in his later years, though only by correspondence, when I was researching a biography of one of the poets Williams had befriended and sponsored, and one day when I was least expecting it the mailman brought me a heavily stiffened package that I just knew had something grand in it! I used a scissors to hack away at the duct tape surrounding all edges of the reinforced cardboard square, and soon my little studio was littered with bits of rubber, plastic, tape and brown paper, and I was in hog heaven when the debris flew away and revealed a gorgeous print Williams had made for me of the man I was writing about. It was his way, he said, of encouraging me. I see this portrait reproduced in A PALPABLE ELYSIUM on page 149, the poet Jack Spicer, casual and nearly unrecognizable in jeans and what looks like an Eisenhower jacket with padded shoulders, one flung back, his hands held awkwardly at different angles, one nearly hidden behind his butt. He's balancing on a huge hunk of felled timber, one of many massive trunks in the photo, a swatch of white sky like a flag poking through the timber at the top center of Williams' composition. The photo is from 1953 and had that eerie fifties quality peeking through it, I suppose a question of the color film stock JW used (and perhaps the particularly romantic gaze of the Rolleiflex with which it was taken).
   
   Not all the photos in the book have this resonance for me, but many are remarkable in any light, and some have that archival quality of wow! Lorine Niedecker, Mina Loy, who else but Williams has given these writers both the high quality exposure their work deserved, or sat them down to give these uncompromising images for posterity. Actually there aren't many women in the book, and the "genius and solitude" subtitle might have been an indication that this was going to be a highly specialized, masculinist vision, but I couldn't help myself, I embraced this book as a memory of the late Jonathan Williams, for who could resist, in the captions that accompany each photograph, a man who tells us that in his youth Michael McClure was so beautiful that JW called him Allure McClure, and once took advantage of an overnight trip to pilfer, for erotic purposes, a pair of Michael's boxer shorts.... God bless him.

1 comments about The Autobiography Of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey From Slavery To Scholarship (African American Life Series).

1. This is an inspiring autobiography of one of the most successful African-American educators of his time. From about 1875-1925 Scarborough taught Greeek and Latin, mostly at Wilberforce University, where he eventually became President of the university. Scarborough gives an interesting and heartfelt account of his endeavors in education, classical literature, and the promotion of his race and faith. The book should interest the general reader, as well as professional classicists and historians.

5 comments about Taught by America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton.

1. The book is excellent and appears to be new and arrived promptly



2. We used this book for a women's book club study. It was very interesting and yet startling information. well written and a good read for anyone.



3. This is a beginning teacher in the "Teach for America" program that starts her career in the Compton, CA area better known as the Watts area in LA. Since I have been a teacher for 36 years and live in LA, I relate to this book and her many disappointments and joys. Read it--you'll love it, especially if you are or have been a teacher.



4. I enjoyed this book. The author is very realistic and authentic in her discussions. I found it to be very thought-provoking.



5. First Yale, then a little Peace Corps work in the jungles of America, and back to school. She left Compton in 1995 and has been in graduate school ever since. This emphasis on "White" troubles me. I doubt that the TFA teachers' problems stem from their being white. The biggest gap I ever witnessed between a teacher and her students was between a haughty middle-class black woman and her ill-behaved charges. She wasn't a guilt-ridden white, full of caring, but a proud black woman who was righteously appalled that the ghetto kids were being enabled by a slack administration looking to make excuses for the lazy kids. The White Ivy League snots who work in the ghetto were never in the school; they were visitors, giving teaching a shot. Why in the world would parents send their kids to Yale to see them become teachers? You can get a teaching credential at the local state college. No. TFA is designed to add sainthood to one's resume, so one will forever be described not only as sexy, rich and smart, but also as caring, compassionate and, above all else, not racist. This is the only reason mom and dad, after paying $40,000 per year for four years, would tolerate seeing their child waste two or three years fooling around with blacks and browns in America's urban jungles. M & D can dine out with stories from their son or daughter's acts of heroism for years and years. Ms Sentilles doesn't let a day go by, I'm sure, that she doesn't tell someone about her work in Compton, a town amusingly described as poor (think Biafra) when in fact the houses there, on palm tree-lined streets, sell for $400,000. The kids come to school with their pockets filled with pickles, potato chips, and candy because they won't eat the "cafeteria food" which they consider too "nasty" for their delicate palates. Each and every one a Zsa Zsa Gabor, the kids have never done a chore in their lives. Their parents demand to see a counselor of their child's race, insisting that one of another race would be prejudiced. Hence, the "understaffed" schools, according to Ms Sentilles, in fact, have entire offices filled with bi-lingual aides, counselors, vice-principals, coordinators, and translators. The kids are trained in this system of victim-hood and privilege, so they stay home in droves on rainy days so as not to get wet, demand to see their counselor when told to turn off their phones, and walk out of the classroom when refused. I worked in LAUSD for over ten years. The sad tale of desperate kids trying to make do in under-funded schools is an insult to the California tax-payers who are taxed to death to pay for well-staffed schools, with huge federal bonus funds which are squandered on text book orders made at mid-year and end-of-year due to damage and waste. Where I taught, kids would throw so much food away, on to the floor, mind you, that staff used snow shovels to scoop up the waste. This on a daily basis. Feeling sorry for these lower-middle-class "poor" is itself an industry, one which the author exploits, despite her sincerity and integrity.

5 comments about Teaching Amidst the Neon Palm Trees.

1. The spiritual journey of a very inspiring educator. This book is exciting and inspirational. Fantastic!



2. The author is a flaming liberal. We spend the entire book wondering why he is getting this rough treatment from superiors / colleagues which he documents in such painstaking detail. Amazingly, it is not until page 169 of this 175 page book that he casually reveals that the answer is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION. He explains that CCSN wanted to hire more Hispanics and that his supervisor was told to replace him with a woman. Incredibly, the author seems to sympathize with this goal and then quickly moves on to another topic. His downplaying of this issue is odd, because he mentions a dozen times that he felt his idea of free travel scholarships for poor students was a good idea. Hey, I think everyone could benefit from his class trip to Europe, but why in the world should taxpayers and the other students be forced to pay for those who didn't save their money? Tuition at CCSN is already greatly subsidized and all students have the opportunity to find a job and save money. Besides, maybe their choice of assistance would be something more essential than a free trip to Europe! The author also complains that he didn't receive money from taxpayers (in the form of unemployment compensation) because he didn't teach over the Summer. As a part-time CCSN teacher, I can verify that Summer jobs are not plentiful. Why in the world would a part-time teacher expect to receive a Summer teaching assignment, ahead of all the full-time teachers? If he was truly an educated and talented person, I'm sure he could have found work here, given our 3.5% unemployement rate and our conducive atmosphere for starting a business. He mentions that CCSN's budget for international student recruitment was $270,000, but doesn't seem to find anything unusual about this. Why are taxpayers paying this much money to bring foreign students here? We already have plenty of foreigners in this community... just look around. He briefly comments on the firing of Mike Meyers for using a possibly-derogatory nickname to describe Zelda Williams, but he fails to mention the biggest scandal of all at CCSN: Zelda received a $50,000 payoff by the CCSN President and Chancellor, even though a judge threw her case out of court and CCSN attorneys advised against awarding any money until they could investigate her claim of "emotional distress". The author also fails to mention the outrageous, multiple scandals where Wendel Williams abused his authority to take advantage of CCSN. The lesson to be learned here is that we should privatize the education system and stop abusing the taxpayers.



3. Lee Ryan Miller's Book is a perfect text book to clean up waste and what is ineffective about our Comunity College System. I can see that a henchman was sent to discredit.... but read it for yourself and see the patterns of the "underbelly." I could add book # II to his list and maybe we're redy for the recepie. This book takes you into the bowels of the system and tells you where the next volley of shots will be fired.... you bet they don't want you to read this one, as it will change community college elections all over the US.
   
   And by the way..... go ahead and run for a public office like a board position and see how many "Sour Grapes" pop up.. you'll also get a chance to meet the true "underbelly" of the educational system and their buzzards that they keep circling for each and every little crumb and and :chink" in your "metal"... but keep the course and proceed as it will never change unless you take a grass roots approach and start with the drudeous tack of cleaning up the "underbelly"!



4. Lee Ryan Miller deserves an award for exposing political corruption in academia. His first person account of his experience as a professor in Las Vegas, enables us to better understand the term, "Sin City."
   
   This book read like a novel. As each page unfolded, I became more intrigued with the story. Facts read better than fiction in this case. He is a gifted writer. Let's hear more from him.
   
   A first rate book from start to finish!



5. This book, while using the trials and tribulations of Academia, isn't about Academia at all. Its about doing the right thing, for the right reasons, no matter what. Lee Miller went the extra mile, and showed what he is made of. He could have been a Marine, or a Bus Driver. The message is still the same.