A powerful story of courage and hope that should inspire others to follow trailblazers like Steckel and his students.
Inspiring account of what it takes to overcome class and ethnic barriers to gain acceptance to college.
In 2006, Steckel was recruited to a new Brooklyn high school (the Secondary School for Research) from the college admissions program of a private Upper East Side school. He and his wife, Zasloff (co-author: Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance, 2008), chronicle the pitfalls he faced as he helped the students navigate the college-admissions process and worked with his existing network of admissions officers and support programs to qualify candidates in innovative and unorthodox ways. The success stories built foundations for others in applying and dealing with the stereotyping, racism and unconscious bias the students encountered as they advanced toward their goals of college admission. Steckel helped the students develop the resources to present their personal stories successfully. They also had to keep their eyes on the prize as they endured brutal misfortunes—e.g., the fire that destroyed Mike's home and put him in a shelter or the gang beating that nearly killed Dwight. Steckel was with them the entire way, celebrating successes and helping them overcome heartbreaking setbacks and bureaucratic inflexibility. He helped the students find programs in which potential college candidates from disadvantaged communities could pre-qualify through competitive recruitment—e.g., Questbridge and Posse, which work with Ivy League schools. The author also worked with them to meet deadlines, be on time for interviews and raise funds through scholarships. Of the 42 members of Steckel's first graduating class, 41 entered college, and they qualified for $1.8 million in scholarships. The next year's class was 75 strong and ready for another new beginning.
A powerful story of courage and hope that should inspire others to follow trailblazers like Steckel and his students.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59558-904-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Yet another call to retool the American classroom, but this time preceded by a thoughtful review of the historical forces at work in the schools. Philadelphia-based RÇnyi is the director of CHART (Collaboratives for Humanities and Arts Teaching). When public schooling took hold in the US a little more than 150 years ago, the immigrant poor were not expected to finish the six or eight years of education available. It was assumed they would quickly drop out and go to work. According to the author, when education through high school became compulsory—generally after WW II—it ignited confusion and controversies that continue today. RÇnyi explores many of those issues, ranging from the Protestant religious tradition that helped to mold public schools through the dilution of the curriculum and the ``bland pudding'' of present-day textbooks to the attention-getting squabbles over bilingual education and multiculturalism at every level of education. Her careful examination of the radical changes in types of immigrants and patterns of socialization shows that earlier waves of immigrants were not only more closely attuned to the German/British style of education but were not expected to benefit fully from public education until the second or third generation. RÇnyi finds that new immigrants—and African-Americans—bring to schools a determined ethnicity that is unwilling to blend into the mythic melting pot. The argument over multicultural vs. traditional education is, the author says, ``...class warfare disguised as ideology.'' Nevertheless, she holds that a broad umbrella of traditional values—liberty and justice among them—can encompass a multitude of cultural reference points, teaching styles, and resources without relinquishing rigorous standards. A sometimes moving, sometimes illuminating, but often unfocused commentary—one that wants to de-emphasize ideology and that applauds the skilled, imaginative teacher tuned into the potential of curious children, whatever their ethnic backgrounds.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56584-083-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
Jacoby (The Last Intellectuals, 1987, etc.) joins the culture wars with the aim of striking a middle balance between ``left'' and ``right''—and manages the job with brio. The author is as incisive and convincing in unraveling the Great Books controversy as he is in tackling the speech codes formulated in response to pornography and racism by law theorists like Catherine MacKinnon. Jacoby provides, as context, a history of the concept of relativism from the Sophists onwards; a history of the ill-fated classical curriculum in the American university; reflections on inter-minority racism; and even on attempts by early lexicographers like Witherspoon and Webster to create an American language distinguishable from the British. Jacoby makes the little- heard argument that much of the hysteria concerning our country's cultural dis-uniting fails to acknowledge that an ever-accelerating homogenization may itself create what we call ``multi- culturalism''— as people of their own volition frantically search for identities that are fast being swallowed up and forgotten. The dominant consumer culture, argues Jacoby, tends to call the shots, subsuming everything into it and blending out all significant or important differences. Jacoby's claim, in sum, is that true multiculturalism, properly understood not as superficial cultural consumerism but as an integral part of the Western intellectual tradition since the Enlightenment, need not be diversionary. In fact, used as a means of overcoming misunderstanding (rather than as a weapon of ethnic chauvinism and division), it should be at the heart of the American academic experience. Tolerance and common sense could make it so. Although welcome for its clarity and elegance, Jacoby's account, much more importantly, looks beyond faction toward the common good.
Pub Date: April 7, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42516-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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