WHERE THE RAINBOWS WAIT: The Remarkable Lessons Taught and Learned in a One-Room Texas Schoolhouse

by Trent & Carlton Stowers Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 1978

One sees the title and thinks of Elwyn Richardson or Sylvia Ashton-Warner but little except the raw circumstances compares to such talented predecessors. Trent Jones, once nominated as Teacher of the Year, took on Terlingua's one-room school assignment to escape San Antonio's unappealing rigidity and to give his daughters an opportunity to grow up in a simple environment. But Jones found things were not so simple: maintenance problems (plumbing, etc.) consumed much of his time and politics, small-town style, were just as petty and irritating as any big city system. There were individual learning successes--a welcome place for a slightly retarded boy, eye-opening contacts for former correspondence-school kids--but most of rials concerns the lessons Jones learned: how to outwit a hostile school board president or force the community to fight the bureaucracy. The portraits of local residents and the chapter on the town's yearly claim to fame--the World's Championship Chili Cook-Off--are engaging. Jones himself emerges as resourceful but a bit callow and self-impressed. So no pot of gold: just another small victory which remains more important to the participants than to outsiders.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Playboy--dist. by Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION