2 comments about School Daze: The diary of a first year, Washington, D.C. teacher.

1. I have been teaching for nearly 20 years and came across School Daze on the Internet. I purchased the book hoping to compare my first year as a teacher to Bradley's. When the book arrived, I read the book in two days. It is an extremely accurate portrayal of the life of a first year teacher. Also, the humor Bradley uses really takes the book to another level. I highly recommend School Daze.



2. Someone recommended this book to me and gave it to me as a gift. I was less than thrilled until I started reading the book. I truly enjoyed it, far beyond what I had imagined. Bradley uses a light touch and every page is lifted with Bradley's unique sense of humor. Highly recommended.

No comments about Minds and Hearts in Praise of God: Hymns and Essays in Church Music in Honor of Hugh T. McElrath.

1 comments about Falling Off the Roof of the World.

1. This book is the captivating tale of Lama Dudjom Dorjee Rinpoche, "The Jolly Lama." The book is divided into short stories in chronological order that make it easy to digest in segments.
   
   It is easy to see from this book that Lama Rinpoche is a giant of a man - but the book could almost be renamed (after a similarly-themed children's book) - "The Little Lama that Could." This accomplished yogi was not placed into a monastic setting as a child like many Tibetan master's, he had to compete for his education time and time again! A fulfilling read for anyone interested in yoga, Tibetan Buddhism or inspiring biographies.
   
   Side note: the first part of the book also gives detailed information about native Tibetan plants, animals, and customs that may be of interest.

No comments about Alice Hamilton: A LIFE IN LETTERS.

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 John Dewey & Decline Of American Education: How Patron Saint Of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching & Learning.

1. Most of my thirty four years of teaching the physical sciences and math were enjoyable despite being beclouded by the frustrating confusion of the pernicious decline of educational statistics. Our most earnest efforts in "inovative" programs, better book and innumerable caimpaigns for bigger budgets and better schools notwithstanding, the stats continued their depressing downslides. Why??? Professor Edmondson answers that critical one word question most succinctly in the 123 pages of "John Dewey and the Decline of American Education. It is a compelling read for everyone.
   Steve Masone, veteran educator and author of Hammer of Chalk



2. To be in education is to be, at some level, a political activist. After all, education is the water that feeds the tree of a democratic republic, and those who would educate are preparing the youth for citizenship in said society. Edmondson decries the state and direction of our society and this book is his activist response. While the focus of his scapegoating is John Dewey, the book is much less about Dewey's legacy and his work (which is superficially represented in the book - and naturally so; after all, who could possibly summarize in less than 130 pages the oevre of a man who published over 35 books and scores of articles over the course of his career?) than it is about the tragedy of a judicial interpretation of one of the cornerstones of our founding Constitutional principals: separation of church and state.
   
   The book is interestingly researched and is a unique and lively discussion of Dewey. About half way through the text, though, it becomes clear that the object is not to protest the influence of an educational philosophy but to use the cover of education scholarship to engage in the debate about school prayer. In his discussion of the function of education as an apparatus for moralizing he points towards Dewey and Dewey's ambivalence for religious indoctrination as the root cause for this deficiency in 21st century American classrooms. It seems Dewey, in other words, is directly responsible for having prayer taken out of schools - an extreme claim to be sure.
   
   If partisan scholarship isn't problematic for you, the book ofers some interesting insights into the educational philosophies of our contry's early political leaders. The book offers an interesting spin on the effects of our eduational system - spin that fails to address issues of race and, especially, class in exchange for cliched urgings for a return to a nostalgic educational past.



3. You are welcome to do your own research on John Dewey, but he has hardly corrupted America's schools -- in fact, we've hardly adopted his theories at all. If we had, we would no longer have SATs, LSATs, MCATs, or GPAs for that matter. We certainly wouldn't have the No Child Left Behind Act. This book is about school prayer, not John Dewey.
   
   From Wikipedia: "Dewey's ideas, while quite popular, were never broadly and deeply integrated into the practices of American public schools, though some of his values and terms were widespread. Progressive education (both as espoused by Dewey, and in the more popular and inept forms of which Dewey was critical) was essentially scrapped during the Cold War, when the dominant concern in education was creating and sustaining a scientific and technological elite for military purposes. In the post-Cold War period, however, progressive education has reemerged in many school reform and education theory circles as a thriving field of inquiry. Dewey is often cited as creating the foundations for outcomes-based education and Standards-based education reform, and standards such as the NCTM mathematics standards, all of which emphasize critical thinking over memorization of facts."



4. In 51 years of observing and experiencing the public education system in America I formed three broad impressions. The first was that educators must have a fondness for experimentation, since they always seemed to be reinventing the wheel. The second, was that all this reinventing was disturbing considering that those same educators didn't even seem to have a firm grasp on what outcome they desired. The third impression I had was that all the experimentation must be good for educators in the sense that it probably gives them ample excuse to go on taxpayer funded junkets to symposiums in swank places like San Franciso; all in the name of discovering the next best "method" of educating children. This book has made it clear why I developed those impressions over the years. The author of all the chaos in the schools is a man who wrote 130 books/papers on educational theory but could not manage or get results in the one actual classroom he taught in - namely John Dewy. Only a liberal could follow such a blind guide. Dewey might be likened to a Jimmy Carter of Education.
   
   This book is not as in-depth as one might like, but the author points out in the preface that oceans of ink have already been spilled over Dewey and his theories. This book seeks to cut through those oceans and offer a brief and devastating critique of the reckless experimenter named Dewey. Dewey serves as type of person who thinks he knows better than parents how to raise and educate children, and who flippantly would use children as pawns in an end-game of social engineering. Sort of sounds like Marxism doesn't it?



5. I was teaching first-grade in Brooklyn when I read this book, and found a lot of Edmondson's arguments persuasive, given my classroom experience. Deweyan pedagogy is challenging, if not in some ways damaging, to implement even in the smallest ways in an actual classroom. That said, Edmondson's book isn't really about Dewey or his thought. It's a political work, which repeats a number of points made by educational traditionalists, but doesn't really represent Dewey's thought accurately, or engage with him critically in a serious way. Edmondson takes the portrait of Dewey presented by Russell Kirk in "The Conservative Mind" and imputes it to Dewey. Again, let me stress, I often agreed with Edmondson's assessment of American education, but his book is NOT an accurate or effective account of Dewey's thought and what's wrong with it. John Patrick Diggins' "The Promise of Pragmatism" remains the best account of Dewey's flaws, though it is primarily political, rather than pedagogical.

2 comments about No Child Left Behind? The True Story of a Teacher's Quest.

1. This compelling book evoked the entire spectrum of feelings and emotions from inspiration, admiration and joy to anger, fear and grief. You made my already high opinion of teachers, even higher. You taught me and you made me think....always signs of a great book!



2. Author note: I just learned that some vendors are offering discounted prices. Please be aware that, as of this date, the only books available are full price, for No Child Left Behind? The True Story of a Teacher's Quest. You can try it if you wish, (I'm all for saving you money!), but don't be surprised if the vendors who offer a discounted price end up refunding your money.
   If you order directly from Amazon, you will be fine. :)
   If discounted prices become available in the future, I will update this information for you.
   Happy reading and thank you for your interest!
   This post requires a rating, so of course, I'll give it 5 stars!
   Elizabeth Blake

2 comments about An Unconditional Relationship to Life: The Odyssey of a Young American Spiritual Teacher.

1. Like other works by Andrew Cohen, and the highly respected magazine that he founded (What Is Enlightenment?), this book reflects an extraordinary integrity and relentless commitment to showing the way for others. Written before his more mature works (e.g., Embracing Heaven and Earth), which have clarified and refined his teaching message, this book enables the reader to understand Cohen's original motives for seeking Liberation from the fears and desires of the Ego, and introduces his radical vision of Impersonal Enlightenment (in contrast to the more widely sought Personal Enlightenment). A compelling and passionate communication, this book is essential for any contemporary student of the spiritual domain, and an inspiration for any genuine spiritual seeker.



2. This guy Cohen is a fraud and his books an endless and relentless stream of unmitigated glibness. He inhabits the realm of the merely plausible and is a dark angel of the imaginary. Beware of soft shoe shufflers dancing round inside your head who take you on the road to nowhere and then abandon you. It's a callous and cruel trip exclusively tailored for weak minded suckers. Following a guru destroys the followers and the teacher....submission to the will of another is a total abdication of responsibility and a shameful act. Cohen encourages and indeed coerces his disciples to do this and he is thus guilty of a heinous spiritual crime against humanity....he is a man immersed in the corruption of his own egomania, a prisoner of darkness. Read this book at your peril.

5 comments about A Woman's Education.

1. Conway's previous autobiographical installments, "The Road From Coorain" and "True North," were wonderful. I found them lyrical and insightful. At the risk of hyperbole, they should be considered classics in the genre of autobiography. "A Woman's Education" simply doesn't attain that status. The focus of the book is more limited and vastly different from the previous installments. It truly seems more of a paean to Smith College. This is all well and good, but not what I was expecting.
   
   The insights into Conway's character seemed oddly lacking. While she discusses at great length the politics involved in governing the various backbiting academics at the college, very little is mentioned about her mother's death (which she notes was very disturbing to her given their difficult relationship), little is mentioned (other than superficially) of her husband's battle with depression and her abilities to handle that as well as her presidential chores, and little is made of her husband's neurological illness and how that affected both of their lives. In short, I found her discussion of her interior life to be superficial -- quite unlike her first two installments. And her interior life is what makes her a remarkable person. I'd like to know what made her tick during this time period in her life, but I don't feel that I got any of that from this book.

   This book is a polemical for women's separate education. Although I agree with Conway that Smith and other institutions like it fulfill a great void in this country (and in the world, for that matter), I didn't expect this book to be so overwhelmingly devoted to the topic. At times I felt it was one big recruitment tract -- whether to attract more students or to attract more funding for the school, I haven't quite decided.




2. When first told of this book, I looked forward to reading about a woman who had achieved such a position - the first female president of Smith College. I was soon very disappointed, and am not certain exactly how I waded through the 143 pages. "A Woman's Education" gave me no insight into the person who is Jill Kerr Conway. I do not know her any better than I did prior to reading this book. (I have not read her prior two books) Her concentration appeared to be focused on the male-dominated educational system, and the fact that she is a feminist and wanted Smith College to be known as a feminist insititution. One hundred and forty-three pages is a little overly long to drill this message into a reader's brain.

   It would have been more interesting to know about Jill Kerr Conway. While she does describe her struggles with an aging faculty and touches on the backbiting politics of Smith College in the mid-1970's, she comes across as a person completely devoid of any human emotion. Even her husband's bi-polar condition and her mother's death are treated as mere facts and the reader is left wondering what, if anything, Jill Kerr Conway truly felt about these traumatic events occuring in her life at the same time as taking over the position of president at Smith College. I came away from this book knowing only that Jill Kerr Conway considers herself a feminist, that her major area of study was history, and nothing more. Surely, no one is that uninteresting?

   The feel of this book reads as a textbook, and it seems Ms. Conway wrote it more from the position of a history professor than from a more human aspect. This is the type of book that a Women's Studies professor would deem required reading, and I truly felt that it is to those students who Ms. Conway was writing to.




3. AND I FELT REALLY CONNECTED TO THE AUTHOR

   I really can't explain my feelings in words. Look at the subject first then read on. They are all by Dr. Jill Ker Conway (shes a phd). The titles are The Road from Coorain (also a Exxon Mobil Masterpiece Theater movie as well), True North, and A Women's Education. Is she orginally from New South Wales, Australia. Came to the United States for graduate school, but stayed there after that, but was Canada as well for 6 years. Boys you will also love reading them as well. Thank you.




4. If you are involved as a university alum in one or many of your alma mater's boards, directorates, planning committees and/or fund raising campaigns, you will find it fascinating to learn from Ms. Conway what it was like from her perspective to head a major US college for ten years. It doesn't always happen that such a dynamic academic leader is also a talented writer--and takes the time to write a book about it.



5. This is the most thought-provoking book in Jill Ker Conway's series of autobiographies. While the first book centered heavily on Conway's emotional development and the second book dealt mainly with her intellectual development, in the third book she describes her changing world and academic perspectives. In A Woman's Education, Conway really challenges her readers to think critically about how women should be educated, the role of a private women's college, and ultimately what it means to be successful as a female.
   A previous reviewer mentioned that they felt like they were reading a textbook while reading A Woman's Education. While this book definitely has a more academic tone, it does not resemble a textbook in any other way. Instead, reading through A Woman's Education, feels a lot more like being in an intimate college class taught by Conway.

1 comments about Leonhard Euler.

1. This book is an excellent presentation of the story of Euler's life. It includes some bits of humor (like seeing the streets in Basel named respectively Leonhardstrasse and Eulerstrasse as jointly honoring the man although neither street is actually named for the great mathematician). Unlike "Euler the Master of us All," the book is organized around the chronology of his life rather than the concepts he studied, and it includes new details of his life. It also has some wonderful illustrations.