5 comments about The Thread That Runs So True: A Mountain School Teacher Tells His Story.

1. I am not one that usualy likes the books teachers require me to read, but this book was great. The story was captivating and fun. The reading was light and I wasn't a fan of the choppy "chaptering" of the book, but I did enjoy it very much.



2. This was the book I read in high school that made me want to be a teacher. Jesse Stuart's experiences as a young Kentucky teacher in the hill country are classic.
   
   His writing is sincere and full of the love of education. Both of his parents were good hard-working people who could barely read.
   
   Only a true writer could have conveyed the sense of adventure, the wonder, and above all, the sense of accomplishment that inspiring young minds gives to the true teacher.



3. When I was in Junior High I found Jesse Stuart's book "Hie to the Hunters" in the school library. It remains one of the best books I have ever read. Stuart was at the same time a tough man's man and a sensitive poet. His love of the natural beauty of Kentucky and his people shines through in all his writing, as does his toughness, hard work and perseverance. He was born in the hill country of Kentucky to a father who was not literate and a mother who had only completed a few years of grade school, yet he and his brothers and sisters learned the value of education and became school teachers. "The Thread That Runs So True" is the story of his career in education, beginning when he was a 17-year-old teaching a rural one-room school in the 1920s, through stints as a principal and superintendent of schools, and finally as a farmer, author, and lecturer. "The Thread That Runs So True", written in 1949, remains probably his best-known book, but parts of it are almost too painful to read. Stuart's first year of teaching was at a country school where his older sister had been badly beaten up and driven from the school by a tough male student. Stuart wrote poignantly of the beautiful and the ugly in this book, and it is very worthwhile reading.



4. This book and story takes the reader into the world of education at the grass roots rural level. From the one room school house with 20 year old students still mired in the first grade to brilliant students from impoverished backgrounds. A terrific review and account of cultural conditions in the 1930's, from the depression to WWII. A must read for educators/teachers. Many of the methods and means used by the author will shock and surprise today's readers, but this is Kentucky in the 1930's. Imagery depicted is fantastic.



5. Twenty-two years ago (in 1986) I was a freshman in high school. My English teacher assigned The Thread That Runs So True as part of our summer reading. I am now a college professor & I thought that it would be fun to reread the book now that I have classes to teach.
   
   Stuart's book is powerful. He explains the limited circumstances of his Kentucky pupils in a way that makes you think about the lack of opportunities many Americans face. Stuart will also force you to take off your rose-colored glasses about how wonderful things used to be. He recounts stories of students beating up teachers, indifferent administrators, and students literally walking barefoot in the snow to get to school. The good-old days weren't so great.
   
   One of the best aspects of the Thread That Runs So True is that Stuart has tremendous faith in humanity - and in education's ability to improve each of us and our society. He recounts many instances in which students from the most-impoverished families dramatically improved their lives by going to school. Even a cynic will find it difficult not to feel a little inspired by reading this book.
   
   In my opinion, the book is not perfect. Stuart's argument that education funding is the panacea to cure society's ills is dated; we now know that money for education is very important, but that money alone does not always promote student achievement. Also, I don't want to give anything away, but I thought that the ending of the book was very unsatisfying.
   
   While The Thread That Runs So True has a few drawbacks, it is an inspiring story that will teach you a lot about education early in the 20th Century U.S.

5 comments about Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir.

1. Ms. Faderman has always been an outstanding scholar, giving the academic and Lesbian worlds her well researched, and highly informative books about Lesbians and Lesbianism. She has also written other scholarly works that are highly recommended, if not a little heavy for most readers. In her latest venture, her memoir " Naked in the Promise Land", Ms. Faderman shows her readers another side of her makeup, her personal side. The Memoir is as interesting for what it reveled about Ms. Faderman's past life as well as what has been carefully left out. Readers may well have to wait for a bioghapher to tell the complete story of Lillian Faderman's life for it appears that she is willing to go only so far in its telling.
   What is also a point to note is the muse that Ms. Faderman has chosen to use. It defiantly is not the carefully structured formal English she used for her academic books, nor should it be. However, as a memoir it reads more like an Ann Bannon or Clair Morgan novel, and this, perhaps, is part of its charm as well as its draw.
   Finally, in the telling of part of her life story the reader is made aware that Ms. Faderman is a consummate actress. After all she studied hard to learn the techiques. As such, one has to wonder if what she has presented to the world after her "Sunset Strip" life, is nothing more than another act in one more carefully constructed costume.



2. By far, Lillian's best yet. Her previous writings were way too heady for me, but this one held my attention. For those looking for the juicy tidbits of Faderman's personal life, this book pretty much hits the spot. I am looking forward to the sequel -- this woman has much more to tell.



3. I wonder if other men love this book like I do. I loaned this book to someone then forgot whom I loaned it to. Doesn't matter. I've thought about this story a thousand times.
   
   I love my own mother deeply, tenderly, but if I could have chosen my own mother, notwithstanding some very tempting candidates out there, Lillian Faderman would have been numero uno. I'll say it. I'm a softie for strong character; people who have been dragged through the muck and not only survived, but emerged from the pure hell of life to bring honor to themselves and to those who have struggled for the right to their own dignity.
   
   I bought this book the first day it hit the shelf and read it from cover to cover and wished it would not end. I wanted to read it and I didn't want to read it because I've spent maybe two decades sculpting and perfecting this pedastal I've had Lillian Faderman on and I was worried that she would demolish it by turning out to be a prep school and legacy brat from the suburbs. No danger here.
   
   Everything I know about the real lives of lesbians I learned from Dr. Faderman and, I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd enjoy anything else after Maya Angelou's "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings." I read Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Lonliness" and was sickened by it's twisted logic and it stamp of approval from kook psychologist Havelock Ellis. I thought Gertude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" merited points for chutzpah. But Stein, Hall and Angelou are no Lillian Faderman.
   
   This book is rich with terror, heartbreak, despair, grief and finally - triumph. It's what "Brokeback Mountain" should have been rather than another story about how a homosexual dies or gets murdered in the end.
   
   I've changed my mind. It does matter. Whoever has my copy of this book - GIVE IT BACK !



4. I savored every bit of this memoir. There are, sadly, so few really well-written lesbian memoirs. "Naked" is a terrific book and an engaging reading experience. I highly recommend it.



5. Lillian Faderman writes an autobiography with an engaging and compelling style that easily pulls in the reader. She is technically the child of a Holocaust survivor, although her mother and aunt arrived before WWII, sent ahead to America (one presumes this is the Promised Land in Faderman's book title) by the family, to find work in America, sending money home, preparing the way for the rest of the family to eventually settle in America.
   
   Only that reunion never happened: all of Faderman's relatives perished in the Holocaust, and the rest of her mother's life was defined by survivor's guilt, a legacy of conflicting emotions that were inevitably passed on to the first generation of children born after the Holocaust. Lillian Faderman and others of her generation carried the burdens of the ghosts of the slaughtered, the relatives and loved ones who were killed before they were even born.
   
   Faderman's story goes beyond being Jewish: as the first-generation American child born to an immigrant, her experience is one that will speak to many, Jewish or otherwise, and it really is a classic story. The child of an immigrant garment worker, she grew up to live the American dream, getting a college education, eventually becoming a noted historian, textbook author and researcher. True life stories don't get any better than this one.

5 comments about A Personal Odyssey.

1. Perhaps nothing profound is in this book, but it
   can lead the reader to suspect that Thomas Sowell
   has written other, deeper things. It is full of
   stories about various sorts of irrational bureaucrats
   in academia, in government, and in the military,
   maybe not _quite_ as extreme as the pointy-haired
   boss in _Dilbert_, but definitely the sort who could
   have inspired that character. Thomas Sowell could be
   considered a sort of minor patron saint (or "patron
   hero" if such a thing exists) of the virtues of
   sticking to one's guns, calling the shots as one
   sees them despite heavy pressure from those who
   don't understand, refusing to follow any party
   doctrine as if it were infallible dogma, and caring
   about one's students.



2. I first became acquainted with Dr. Sowell through his weekly articles in our local paper and am really impressed by the things he writes about, so I jumped at the chance to get this story of his life. He is a black man who moved from a hard beginning to what I consider great heights. He is a man who will not compromise his convictions no matter the cost. A very inspiring read of a fellow traveler through this time on earth and I would recommend it highly.



3. Sowell's autobiography leaves a lot to be desired in terms of literary style. His writing is mostly stilted, and you feel that he is writing at you rather than taking you along on his "personal odyssey". There are far more "literary" books in this genre, two of which I recently read, one of which I reviewed: Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events That Shaped a Life. Nevertheless, Sowell's book provides valuable insights and lessons from his struggles and circumstances with which he dealt.
   
   Sowell comes across as someone who was, from a very young age, very aware of his situation with respect to others, and keenly knowledgeable of actions he needed to take to improve his lot. This he models when he advocate for a better class placement in elementary school, for example. The same goes for the rest of his career, including his stint in the military.
   
   He demonstrates a very rational, economics-type mind, before becoming an economist, making decisions such as whether to clean his rifle for inspection based on the probability that his specific rifle would ever be selected for actual inspection. For someone like me who is generally a rule follower, its almost painful to see how Sowell "got away" with so much while most of the time he was just practicing good reasoning.
   
   He leaves a lasting impression as someone who always puts principle before practicality, though he sometimes seems too uncompromising. But he lives and dies by the sword, and he more than once left a job or project for reasons of principle, most of the time with little to fall back on.
   
   While his comments and anecdotes on academia, economics, politics, racism, social policy and other issues where interesting and stimulating, I was left wanting for more in terms of introspection or revelation.



4. This is an inspiring book overall, and for me personally. My views are very similar to those of Dr. Sowell and, like him, I'm a PhD economist. Like the author, I have worked in government, the private sector, and academia, so I very much understand the frustration he faced at various stages of his career and his reasons for moving from job to job during the early part of his career, despite taking pay cuts at various points along the way.
   
   What I most admire about Dr. Sowell is his refusal to compromise, his consistently high standards, and his keen eye for the truth. These are what make him truly unique and, in my estimation, almost heroic. It is very difficult to make one's way in this world without compromising your standards and eventually giving in to mediocrity. A clearly brilliant man, he never tolerated stupidity from those who should know better. Most definitely a person to be admired and emulated (if that's possible).



5. If you are interested in Thomas Sowell and enjoy some of his other books, then this book will be the perfect compliment explaining this great man's life. Built off of all personal accounts, Dr. Sowell takes you through his journey from a youngster to today's life.
   
   Intriguing chapters include ones about being in the military, his son's inability to speak early on, and his mental conundrum about whether to get his PhD or not.
   
   I personally enjoyed every page in the book and now feel like I know the man as a personal friend. Thank you Dr. Sowell!

1 comments about Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning.

1. Professor Thomas Neville Bonner who is a distinguished historian and has authored several books about medical education has produced a real literary gem in "Iconoclast-Abraham Flexner and a life in learning". Abraham Flexner and his brother Simon were true giants in reforming medical education and introducing scientific medical research respectively in the USA at the beginning of 20th century. Abraham Flexner's life story is traced with marked clarity and precision of details in this remarkable book. Professor Bonner informs us about his fascination with Abraham Flexner's work in the Introduction by reading his first book "The American College" followed by the famous "Flexner Report- Medical Education in the US and Canada" published in 1910. He then takes us through Abraham's early years growing up as the youngest son of poor Jewish immigrant parents in late 19th century in Reconstruction Louisville, Kentucky, his graduation from high school, attendance at the newly opened Johns Hopkins University and coming back to Louisville at age 19 to become a teacher at his alma mater, Louisville Male High School. Thereafter he becomes principal of his own highly successful preparatory school. At age 42, he " breaks free" from Louisville and enrolls at Harvard and subsequently at Oxford in Britain and then at Berlin University in Germany. On his return back to the U.S.A, he is commissioned by Henry Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to survey 155 medical schools in North America. Flexner Report was a scathing critique of the deplorable conditions of the then extant medical schools and catapulted him into an education specialist status overnite.After being hired by the Rockefeller Foundation, Abraham Flexner was in a unique position to implement medical education reforms, start full-time plan and improve university-hospital affiliations by being able to disburse huge sums of Rockefeller largesse.Bonner points out the immense influence Abraham Flexner enjoyed being at the helm of an epochal reform movement in medical education. He was an author, a negotiator, a highly effective fund-raiser and a philanthropist. He established the Instiute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ which became an intellectual powerhouse , through the philanthropy of Louis Bamberger and was solely responsible for Albert Einstein's immigration to the USA. Abraham Flexner's long life was a multi-faceted and highly eventful one. Professor Bonner has done an admirable job in writing this thoroughly researched and definitive biography which will serve as a highly dependable reference work for future researchers. He writes with great clarity and conviction. The book reads like a novel with tremendous intrigue and drama. I recommend this book as a required reading for medical students, physicians and medical educators.General public will also find this book extremely enjoyable and informative

5 comments about I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom.

1. I'm the Teacher--the story of one semester's U.S. History survey course at Emory--is worth reading by any college teacher, rookie or veteran. Rookies may here find classroom techniques worth implementing, and veterans will enjoy making comparisons with their own classrooms.
   
   Allitt is a lively writer, and his unwillingness to embrace easy, politically correct interpretations of American history increases the reader's confidence in his classroom judgment. (But what does it say about the current state of the historical profession when a first-rate teacher refuses to assign a textbook even though many of his students are so obviously ignorant of basics?)
   
   Clearly Professor Allitt is a good teacher, one who does much more than "turn the crank" on the survey course. Nevertheless, he also makes plain the wearying aspects of his position, especially what he perceives to be necessary accommodation to the rudeness and irresponsibility of his overprivileged undergraduates. For despite the truculent-sounding title, this book exudes a genial acquiescence to the trimming of academic sails.



2. After spending 20+ years in a classroom, I always wondered if other professors felt the same way I did. Allitt's book confirms that they do.
   
   Allitt's book describes the progression of one class through a semester, session by session. We watch him prepare for class, lecture and answer questions. We learn how he writes exams and handles office hours, including some humorous encounters with "weepy" students. I love his "excuse file," which resembles my own, right up to the student's injunction to "reply as soon as possible." At times students unwittingly sound more like bosses!
   
   I'm the Teacher should be read in the context of the author's specific circumstances. He's a male in a liberal arts faculty. I doubt that a female professor could get away with some elements of Allitt's style. He wears the same old jacket, year after year. He's demanding. At one point he "towers over" a student who dares to open a fashion magazine: "Put that away at once!" And he refuses to get involved with students' personal lives.
   
   Female professors are expected to be nurturing and empathetic. For a contrast, read Gail Griffin's book, Seasons of a Witch, a vastly underrated book based on the author's experience as a professor of English and women's studies.
   
   And in the business schools where I taught, students often scoffed at learning ("It's who you know that counts"), but we were much better paid.
   
   To anyone seeking to understand academic life, Allitt's book offers a glimpse of reality on one dimension: teaching and dealing with students. But a professor in a university also faces endless committee meetings and political interactions. Allitt's life seems peaceful, almost idyllic. We don't see the challenge of finding time for research along with teaching and the ever-increasing service.
   
   Still I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Allitt has a gift for storytelling and his enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. Readers not only get a taste of academic life. We gain a fascinating taste of Allitt's perspective on some much-discussed events of American history.



3. I liked the accounts of what Allitt admits is a topic rarely covered by academics: the day-to-day progression of one course taught over a semester. I envy his position at prestigious Emory; if he had taught, as I have and still alas do, at far less distinguished institutions, I reckon his report would have been far more discouraging about the lack of preparation and the dismal study habits of his students. Compared to the majority of American students and instructors, those at Emory enjoy a charmed life. He does acknowledge the limits of previous preparation among his students, of course, but he seems to forget that many students and faculty, not enjoying the privileges of being supported at an expensive and well-endowed private university, labor under far more cumbersome and challenging circumstances than he describes.
   
   There was a disconnect throughout this book, as a result. Atlanta's ivory tower seemed to have cocooned him and his charges too snugly. I wanted to know about his research, his other courses, the load of work (he did have an FA) that he had to balance against his own family and personal committments, and how much of his day was spent on this one history course vs. his other duties. I had no real idea of his own specialty in history beyond a few passing remarks; while this was an introductory class in which generalities predominate, I still wished to find out about the more specific encounters he had, by contrast, with history in his other courses and research.
   
   By concentrating on the microcosmic world of the one course, he does explore well the dynamics that ebb and flow over the weeks among students and between them and himself; his preparation of visuals and supplemental material speaks well to his diligence. His frank explanation of grading and evaluation also shows the pressures that any faculty member--even more for those of us untenured--must face when balancing a stated determination to enforce rigor against the end-of-term tendency to play mercy against justice! Not forgetting that the students expect, as "customers," a good grade as return for their hefty investment, of money if not necessarily effort and achievement.
   
   All in all, this is an honest and entertaining study. I'm sure that he is a respected and popular teacher, not condescending to trying to be trendy or hip or snobbish. He knows his abilities, uses his talents, yet remains a bit distant from his students--which is as it should be, in his explanation. I would have wished for a wider look at where this one course fits into the larger career that Prof. Allitt has pursued within a very contentious job market and gained despite a brutal pecking order. This shortcoming aside, it would be a well-chosen book for college students to-be, faculty members, and those who pay for both: parents of the students, unprepared or otherwise, who enable and demand, if grudgingly for such unremunerative majors, such courses to continue.



4. Patrick Allitt's "I'm the teacher," has received strong reviews for its candor in addressing the challenges of teaching at the university level. Prof. Allitt combines a journal of his offering of one introductory course, together with his summary of a broad view of American history. He also includes the administrative duties that come with the position.
   
   Allitt makes a good case for the social function of teaching a discipline and, as the title suggests, he has no sympathy for any approach to education that would diminishes the power relationships in the classroom that he carefully describes.
   
   However, he does seem to miss one point: Why is it that US tertiary education is considered the best in the world? Allitt require his students to read vast amounts of material in original sources, although his course is supposed to be an introductory survey. If all the available texts in his field are as bad as he says, why doesn't he write his own (for exam like Gregory Mankiw, Economics, Harvard)? Allitt is Oxford-trained and seems to try to run his Emory class as if it were a nice little seminar at All Souls. Does he miss completely that Emory ain't Oxford and what students seek in a survey course may be a bit different that what he is force-feeding them?



5. Prof. Allitt's book recalling a semester of teaching a survey level US History course is the most entertaining and enjoyable thing I've read this year. I had some previous familiarity with his thoughts on academic subjects from several Teaching Company courses which he presented or in which he participated. All were quite good, but I found them generally orthodox, if accurate, approaches to the subject matter. In "I'm the Teacher" he shows a sharper critical edge, not to mention an abundance of dry British wit, each of which makes for entertaining reading while not descending to the "all my students are incomprehensible dullards" level. Nonetheless, Allitt implicitly delivers a powerful critique of American secondary education.
   
   Although I've spent 7 years in undergraduate and post-graduate education, I must admit that I've had no idea of the professor's viewpoint, apart from that of a friend or two in law schools, given long after I graduated. In fact, as I read Allitt's book, I experienced a fair amount of guilt over my undergraduate attitudes, work habits and efforts, all of which were largely of the mediocre level of which he complains. Something, however, probably the efforts of the 4 or 5 excellent professors I had, motivated me to attempt continued learning and that pursuit is exceptionally rewarding in middle age. And that heightens the sense of what I missed by not being a better student years ago.
   
   More significantly, "I'm the Teacher" led me to realize facts about the educational process nearly 35 years after I ended my undergraduate career. In particular, I feel embarassed about my lousy attitude and the frustration which that may have caused my most able professors and I can understand how a journeyman level of writing skills can compensate for all but the most deficient motivation. If Allitt's concerns were reduced to a single level of complaint, student writing would take the cake distantly followed perhaps by geographical ignorance. All in all, I wish that I either knew then what I now know (much better so, in fact, after reading this text) or at least had the maturity to intuit it. I'm not certain that this would be extremely helpful for a late adolescent about to enter college, but if I had a mature close relative in that position I would give it a try. As a matter of thoughtful reading for pleasure for adults though, I have no question about giving the highest recommendation.

2 comments about Zigzag: A Life of Reading and Writing, Teaching and Learning.

1. I found this book, written in an engaging and informal style, hard to put down, and since it's only a bit over 200 pages, I finished it in just a couple days--with regret. Its subtitle, A Life of Reading and Writing, Teaching and Learning, sums it up nicely for me. Romano comfortably and casually follows the zigzag path of his life, from his earliest memories of growing up in Malvern, Ohio to his present position as a professor of English at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. While it's only 260 miles from Malvern to Oxford, the route Romano followed getting from one place to the other took many detours, including a noteworthy one to the University of New Hampshire, so he traveled many more miles over many years. The last time I remember a book inspiring me the way this one has was when, many years ago, a fellow teacher handed me a copy of Ken Macrorie's Uptaught. But Macrorie's viewpoint is that of a college teacher of writing; Romano has had the advantage of working in classrooms at all levels from early elementary through graduate level in college. Partly because I was looking for a book to re-energize my teaching and partly because I liked his earlier book, Clearing the Way, so much, I bought a copy of Zigzag as soon as I first received a notice from the publisher about it. I feel it was money well spent. My teaching has been re-energized and now I have a deeper, more personal understanding of all the challenges conscientious teachers of writing face in their struggles to connect with and inspire their students. Romano's journey was indeed a zigzag one, a road "less traveled," but one I found gutsy, and--when he makes that wonderful connection with students knowing he has really helped them learn and develop as readers and writers--an inspiring and exhilarating one.



2. AS I've come to expect with Tom Romano's work, Zigzag is rich with voice, humor, beautiful language, and real life experiences. What a great memoir for teachers! It will encourage you to write your own and has chapters on growing up that can be used as mentor text and will appeal to our students.

5 comments about My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student.

1. My Freshman Year by Rebekah Nathan is a good idea for an ethnography project, in terms of what the author did, but it falls short of what could have been a better book. Rebekah Nathan, an anthropology professor at ANYU, disguising herself as freshman student after 15 years of teaching. She stayed at the dorms, attended classes, and lived the life of a freshman student in search of her questions. Throughout this book, she searches for answers to her questions of why her students act a certain way, such as, not preparing for class, eating in class, and making little effort to get to know exchange students. The book is organized into two main parts. The first half, Nathan describes the student life in the dorm and the second half, shows the student's classroom behavior. Although Nathan presented many truths about college students, there were many places where, do to it being her job, misinterprets those facts.
   
   Life in the dorms surprised Nathan due to student's willingness to decorate their doors and how students want a sense of community in the dorm, but is not willing to give up their personal time for it. She was also shocked by the language, unfamiliar to those outside of the education system, that the students used, which, she even referred to as a foreign language. Going to class, she found that many students do not read the material for class unless it appears on an exam, almost everyone at some point has cheated or has seen someone cheat on an exam, abide by unwritten classroom rules, and does not do what is not necessary. While these revelations are amusing and accurate to an extent, most college students are already aware of the behaviors and it is not necessarily a new finding. Perhaps it is because we, college students, experience this daily so our own bias makes it feel as if it was generalized. However, when she points out that studying old tests is considered as cheating, she crosses over the line on what cheating is really defined as. Truths such as looking over at a neighbor's test is where Nathan is correct, but she goes well beyond the definition and that is the reason why she misinterprets the facts.
   
   Nathan generalized her points by taking a small sample of students and accounted them for the whole university which can lead to inaccurate results. For example, she claimed that students write papers in the direction that goes along with what the professor wants to hear rather than what they believe. Students feel that writing against what the professor wants to hear will result in a poor grade. But not all students write papers on the stance that will please their professor. Nathan makes a poor statement and it sounds more like students do not have their own opinions in a class room. Another example is that Nathan made many claims regarding student's behaviors in the class through a student perspective, but she rarely provides information through a professor's perspective. So the readers do not have the point of a view of why a professor that has taught 15 years at the university can be puzzled by the culture of the students that she interacts with everyday.
   
   Nathan also did not show the variety of students such as the example of a successful student with time management skills. Instead, she showed only the bad side of students since she only discusses student's bad habits such as skipping, cheating, and not completing all the assigned homework. Since the book is biased, it is not useful as there is flawed data and can also damage the view on college students. Generally parents, professors, and the general public will read this and may get the sense that all college students show their bad side. For the book to be accepted, there should have been more coverage of the successful sides of students rather than all the bad sides, that way the book will not seem as biased.



2. In the published ethnography My Freshman Year, author Rebekah Nathan describes her findings about the practices, priorities, and attitudes of the new generation college freshmen. Her detailed observations are fascinating, although they may be quite obvious to college students that have been freshman in the recent past. Her study offers insight for all those who are unaware about the behavior of college freshman: why they don't seem to take their classes as seriously as before, what freshman girls talk about in their intimate conversations, who eats with whom in the dining center, and the honest answers and opinions she receives from her one-on-one interviews. Nathan's primary research method was observation, but she also interviewed a wide range of students, and posted questions in the girls' bathroom for them to respond to anonymously. Living in the dormitories, Nathan found that the cultural norm of students was one of sociability, individualism, fun, craziness, freethinking spontaneity, and rebellion against authority. This observation contrasted starkly with the formal culture of the college, which stressed advice, academics, and warnings. In regards to student academic life, she noticed that students planned and organized their class schedules and extracurricular activities around what was most important to them. Nathan goes behind the scenes by taking classes and living in the dorms. She educates the reader in depth, and finds information that current freshman students find fascinating. Particularly interesting is what the international/foreign exchange students think of American students. It points out that current American college students should take another look at themselves and also their society. For anyone who wants to learn more about today's college freshmen, I recommend My Freshman Year.
   -F.T., N.O., M.C.



3. Rebekah Nathan is a professor at North Arizona University and she is the author of "My Freshman Year". In her book, she talks about her experiences working on her undercover project while attending a college as an undergraduate. Not only did she enroll in classes and join organizations, but she also signed up to live in the dorms, because thorough her book you can clearly see that Mrs. Nathan is doing her best to find out what is happening with the young generations. The main objective of the experiment was to infiltrate the minds of freshman teenagers to find out what has changed over the last 20 years of college and to learn about their interests.
   
   Nathan calls the university she enrolled in "AnyU" where she was a faculty member. One of Nathan`s main targets was to learn about how young people get along, and most importantly what motivates them to keep going. Even though it sounds exiting to go back to college after graduating, can you imagine moving from your house to a small dorm? Mrs. Nathan tells us in the book what she is feeling throughout her experience, so you can sense when she is depressed or having a difficult time.
   
   Another important issue that she touched on is that there is an outstanding cultural separation. She describes the relations between white people and other ethnicities as marginal and vague because white kids mostly related to other white kids. As a consequence, foreign students that come from different parts of the world to learn about the culture and relate to the people are not given the chance to do so as they hoped. So finally they end up hanging out with people from their same or common roots.
   
   Rebekah Nathan describes her experience at AnyU as unique and special. She remarks that it is an outstanding experience that few people, especially at her age, have the opportunity to share. The book intends to relay a message to the readers, and it is that college education is indeed highly important for personal success, but the college experience, as she describes, is most important since young students develop character and discipline. This is a great book, which is not only intended for college students but also for adults who are curious about what is going on nowadays at universities.



4. I came across this book by accident - I am glad I did. It fit with various themes that had been bouncing around in my head since I read a report on student intellectual life at the school where I work. "Prof. Nathan" does a good job in documenting the enormous gap between the experience of college for faculty, administrators and students. Put quite simply, we inhabit different worlds. I think many college professors and administrators already know this, but "Nathan" puts some meat on the speculative bones. (Note on a pet peeve of mine: for "Nathan," as for many of the professoriate, staff - the non-student, non-faculty denizens of AnyU - never register on her radar.)
   
   "Nathan," in her student guise, learns some interesting lessons. For example, "building community" - in the sense of trying to create spaces and opportunities for large groups of students to interact - is much more important to "Student Affairs" types than it is for the students for whom they are trying to build that community. In fact the students are very content with the community they already have, usually consisting of small homogeneous groups of friends that they met early on in their college life. The frenetic work of RA's to create opportunities for broader civic engagement usually come to naught - few students register interest, even fewer actually participate.
   
   I don't know enough to say that "Nathan's" experiences at a large southwestern public school are representative of the experiences of today's college students in general. I am guessing that there probably are significant differences from college to college (e.g. by size of institution), and from student to student (e.g. their economic circumstances, or the degree to which they have a major or a professional destination in mind). But I think the perplexing refusal of students to "buy in" to the experience that well-intentioned faculty and SA administrators have crafted for them will resonate with many campus "adults."
   
   I think that most students, as "Nathan's" experience demonstrates, do not experience college as the linear experience of intellectual and moral development that most faculty and administrators would want it to be. The four years of undergraduate study are less a progressive dinner than a smorgasbord of varied offerings, in which some items are eaten - as "Nathan" relates - only because they are available in a convenient time-slot. Should we be surprised? If nothing else, isn't it arguably a preview of what most graduates can expect after college? Do most college faculty and staff experience their college work - or their lives in general - as a mapped-out journey towards a defined end?
   
   Overall assessment: a stimulating read. Recommended.



5. This book is inceribly informative - if you've never met, been, heard of or seen a college student. I suppose if you've spent 20 years living in a remote village on another continent you might find some of this interesting.
   
   "Nathan" violates professional standards and common decency to discover such shocking things as: students relish independence and like to have fun, foreign students find Americans individualistic and parochial, and college campuses have many different activities.
   
   In other words, "Nathan" (hopefully) wrecked her career to produce a devastatingly useless book.

5 comments about Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life.

1. I didn't enjoy this book at all - its just not my type of book. I was expecting a biography of his life - but this book is a series of short stories about life in general, not necessarily the authors life.
   
   I guess I just didn't read the back cover properly.



2. My brother was diagnosed with ALS this last October. I bought this book for everyone in my family...it has allowed us to cherish life and the moments we have with him. This is a great book and I recommend it 100%!!!



3. Just a quick note to add my voice to others who love this book by the late Philip Simmons. As moving and beautiful and wise as any creative nonfiction ever written. As a professor of writing, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about life (and the death that makes life possible).



4. I have read this book once a year at the end of winter since its publication because reading it is a great way to herald in the spring given its life-affirming message. As a disabled person, I find it particularly helpful, but I first started reading it a few years before I was disabled. I purchase at least one copy a year because I not only loan it out, I give it away. Such a gift it is.
   
   I also want to say to the people who are disappointed that Simmons doesn't let us into his pathos and pain: perhaps Simmons did not spend a very long time in pathos and pain, let alone want to write about it (living it may have been enough for him). I am disabled and my disability has left me with little social contact (in fact even my spouse left me because of my disability), and yet I am a happy person. It's not that I don't accept or honor my grief, but I spend more time loving life back rather than standing in the crashing waves shaking my fist at God. I suspect this was Simmons way as well.
   
   No doubt he could have written that other book and even made us laugh at his pain, but that was not the focus of his life. Research shows that happy people do not necessarily have more happy experiences--they just focus on those experiences more and are grateful just for the chance to be alive no matter the suffering. That's a lesson in and of itself.



5. This is about the 7th copy of this book that I have purchased. I keep giving them away because the message is so poignant. It is a wonderful story of courage and acceptance in the face of death at too young an age. But - the story is not sad - the author finds the joys in life and the ability to face each day with a positive outlook.

3 comments about Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy..

1. In his film, Sleeper, Woody Allen immortalized Albert Shanker as the madman responsible for blowing up the world. That helped to get Shanker known outside of NY, but clearly it wasn't the real Shanker. In this highly readable and often exhilarating biography of Shanker, Richard Kahlenberg shows that while Shanker, the architect of the modern teacher union movement (and, it turns out, so much more) surely understood power and accumulated it, his only "madness" was to seek to empower the powerless and to hold this nation to the democratic ideals it espoused and he so cherished. Indeed, far from being "mad," Shanker was both intellectually and politically brilliant -- a rare combination -- an idealist with both a shrewd and compassionate understanding of human nature and a pragmatist who nonetheless stood firm on principles, a stance that sometimes incurred the enmity of allies as much as enemies. This was also a man who dealt with the high and mighty, but who in his writing and speaking could take the most complicated ideas and make them accessible to ordinary people without ever dumbing anything down. Had Kahlenberg just written a biography of this complex and far-ranging man, that probably would have been interesting enough. But Kahlenberg goes further and roots Shanker in the major political and cultural struggles over the soul of the Democratic party and the direction of this country. Regardless of one's view of those struggles and their outcomes, Kahlenberg's recounting of them cannot help but make you think of missed opportunities and "what ifs" to this day. Politics, race, education, the meaning and practice of democracy -- a heady and vitally critical brew. And Kahlenberg stirs and blends this pot well through Shanker, his meaty main ingredient.



2. Albert Shanker had always been one of my heroes . . . yet until
   I read TOUGH LIBERAL by Richard D. Kahlenberg, I had not known
   too much about him.
   
   That's no longer the case . . . in fact, this excellent biography even
   increased my appreciation of Shanker who once told an interviewer:
   * "If I didn't have to make a living, I would have done this as a volunteer."
   
   What he did was head the American Federation of Teachers for
   well over 20-25 years . . . by doing so, he helped change the
   perception of teachers by having them recognized as professionals:
   
   * A professional receives a liberal-arts education, then specialized
   training, and then must pass a rigorous exam before beginning
   to practice. She participates in an internship, is guided by mentors,
   and participates in reviewing the performance of colleagues. Once these
   professional responsibilities are met come the reciprocal set of rights:
   greater autonomy and higher compensation. In Shanker's vision,
   policies like a rigorous national test, peer review, and career
   ladders were not just defensive moves against critics
   of public-school teachers, they were prerequisites
   to the professionalization of teaching.
   
   TOUGH LIBERAL summarized Shanker's contributions to
   education in one of the finest concluding paragraphs that I've
   ever read:
   
   * In one lifespan, Albert Shanker helped to create the institution
   of collective bargaining for teachers, giving them greater dignity
   and voice in how they would be treated. He then used that power
   to engage in a series of critical education reforms that proved
   instrumental in improving and preserving the institution of public
   education. Both accomplishments served the larger goal he cherished
   above all others: strengthening American democracy. His failure
   to convince fellow liberals to extend their support of democracy more
   broadly--to racial policy, international affairs, and their views of the labor
   movement--leaves open the question: what might society look like
   if we tried?
   
   If you want to learn about Albert Shanker and the labor movement in
   this country, read this book . . . it will also make a great gift for any
   teacher.



3. Al was my mentor in the 1970's and this is an honest and true representation of the man I knew. There will never be another like him.

5 comments about Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea.

1. I bought this book because I have pet chickens. The story was great and I really related to the chicken stories.



2. I enjoyed the book. It combined my love for chickens, divorce plans from my husband, and my teenage daughter as personal links to the author's story. Well written overall, and it is always comforting to read a book that has such strong connections to your life.



3. There are numerous self-help books on the market that enable people to cope with major life transitions - divorce, the death of a spouse, the move to a new neighborhood, the onset of empty-nest syndrome. Nothing attacks life changes better, though, than the wit and mirth of Caterine Goldhammer's "Still Life With Chickens". Her conversational style is hilarious and reads as if she is sitting across the table from you over coffee and talking about her move to a fixer-upper house by the sea. My favorite paragraph is her observation about the simplicity of life as seen through the eyes of her brood of fluffy chicks: "The chickens went about their little chicken lives, eating and drinking and pecking. When I picked them up, they settled into the hammock I made of my shirt and went to sleep. Their beady little eyes drooped and they leaned their little heads against my thumb. Chickens are masters at living in the moment. I should stop worrying about them, I told myself. I should bow to their greater wisdom."
   A must-buy book for giving to friends who need a good laugh during difficult times.
   
   Christina Hamlett
   Author of "Movie Girl" and "Screenwriting for Teens"



4. This is a charming little book,with a happy ending..Perfect reading for a long trip on a plane, train, automobile..or a waiting room.



5. It's rare to find such a sweet, satisfying read on the topic of midlife changes and detours. While there's nothing terribly new in this memoir -- we've all read about painful divorces and renovating ramshackle houses in far-flung locations -- Catherine Goldhammer's voice and the clarity of her writing make this book highly relatable to women in the throes of change. As an empty nester facing transitions of another kind, I melted into the pages of this book and found comfort. Wish I could find more like it.