A Fun But Serious Look at Education Through The Eyes of an American Teacher
Written: Aug 17 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A fun read with great flow, humor and lots of serious points about education today.
Cons: We will have to wait for the author to write her next book!
The Bottom Line: This refreshing book shows just how we got into our current education mess and points the way out through "consumer" involvement.
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| jlc2005's Full Review: |
I purchased this book in January, 2006 and have hoped I would have an opportunity to review it for epinions.com. In the interim I have re-read it twice. This is a memoir, the story of an American teacher who grew up in the Great Depression in Kentucky and while part of a family that struggled with the economic privations of the Depression, was always the beneficiary of a family environment which placed great value on education.
This book is a personal journey through life, often with laugh-out-loud funny stories to keep the reader engaged but it has a serious point which is an undercurrent through the book from start to finish. This is a book about how education in America has changed and how we ended up where we are now, throwing money at education only to see results continue to get worse. This book tells this story from the perspective of a classroom teacher who had to deal with administrative inertia, curriculum requirements, parents, students and the public at large. It is not full of pat, sound bites which we get from the political administrators.
The book shows how the decline in education began years ago as schools sought to be everything to everybody, pushing out core academics in favor of making sure students and parents are “happy” and staying off the backs of the schools. “Fun” and “playtime”, even at the high school level have replaced academics to the point where today, a large percentage of university freshmen are having to take remedial courses to catch up to where they should be when entering these institutions.
The author shows her own frustrations with a system which dictates from the top with total disregard for the hands-on knowledge of classroom teachers. In one personal classroom experience, she relates a day in which the class she was teaching was audited by a supervisor who said, “You are supposed to be on Page X of the curriculum today.” Never mind if the class was getting anything from it, march on through robotically.
The author’s career covers her practice teaching experience in Kentucky and also highlights the differences among states where she taught: Kentucky, Minnesota, Texas and Arizona. She ended her career at one of the most prestigious independent schools in the Southwest where, alas, the situation is no better than in the public schools, despite sky-high tuition and an assumption that this money is actually buying an education. Mrs. Crabtree addresses how the classroom teaching hours have been reduced over the years to allow for week-long “field trips to build self-esteem”. The author points out that all of the self-esteem in the world cannot compensate for lack of functional knowledge, but that is the trade-off being made in schools today. The fun time sends students home smiling. Grades given out based on “dumbed-down” curriculum keep parents happy and money keeps rolling in until those students reach the workforce and do not have the basic skills they need to function.
The author provides a constant stream of advice and urges parents, students and taxpayers to empower themselves by considering themselves “education consumers”. She even uses an analogy to buying a car. If any of us bought a car which would not run to get off the dealer lot, we would complain and insist that things be made right, not hand over more money and hope. She says we should all become active in demanding more from schools in terms of academic achievement and in terms of getting our money’s worth and places responsibility back on parents to get involved in what their children are learning - or should be learning. She states that it’s “our” money we are putting into this system and we have a right to expect a quality “product” in return for our investment, but contends we are not being wise consumers and implores us to demand more back for our money.
This is truly refreshing. In ten years I have only seen voters turn down one school tax rise where I live and in that time, academic achievement has become a farce. Curriculum from grade school to universities has had to be watered down to compensate for the fact that core academics are no longer being taught and that at the university level, we are gradually moving to a two-tiered system where the few who do have what it takes, move into the AP (advanced placement) curriculum and the rest muddle through at a lower level.
This book is a call to action and a real motivator to start asking why we as consumers are not getting more for our investment, but the book has a soft side as well. Some of the chapter titles are as amusing as the contents therein:
The Old Kentucky Home
Yes, Warden
Doing What Dogs Do
Life In The Military
Free At Last
Career Hiatus
Public School: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Censorship and Super-Glued Lips
“It Was The Best of Times”
“It Was The Worst of Times”
Epilogue
Recommended Reading List
Bibliography
(I won't spoil the super-glued lips part but will say this is part of the author's great use of humor in this book.)
The book is constructed like an example term paper, right down to the bibliography and a very useful list of recommended books. Humor shows through from the very start with a reference to an Alice Cooper song as her career’s last day began the reflective process and motivated her to write this book in the hope that readers would be motivated to become part of the solution.
This is also a unique look at education from the other side of the teacher’s desk which I found to be captivating. I always wondered what teachers were thinking. I always thought that we students were being so clever but I now realize that teachers have seen and heard it all and were always ten steps ahead of us. This book flows very well, is easy, fun and insightful reading and really does point the way out of the abyss in which we have fallen in terms of academics. This book not only took me back to my own days in school but also left me wanting more from this author. This is definitely not like any other book you are likely to read. It’s refreshingly honest.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jlc2005
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Member: Juan Miguel Herrera
Location: Az, Jal, D.F.
Reviews written: 87
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Native Wixáritari (Huichol), Engineer/watchmaker, techie/eccentric, musical schizophrenic. "Grito fuerte por mi gente!"
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