A story-driven explanation of the problems of high-stakes testing that will leave readers with hope for more effective...
An educator draws attention to the social and emotional factors of test-driven school reform.
Koplow (Bears, Bears, Everywhere, 2008) here focuses on the many personal tales that the education-reform movement often ignores. Much of her book consists of stories of individuals: a kindergartener who recently arrived in the United States and needs to adjust to a new culture as well as to a new school; a teacher whose first reaction to learning a student is dyslexic is to worry how it will affect test scores and performance evaluations; and a pair of neighbors who respond to their children’s classroom stresses in very different ways. The anecdotal narrative effectively shows the shortcomings of the modern elementary school classroom and the constraints that prevent teachers, students and parents from making substantive changes. Koplow backs up her vignettes with data, drawing on studies in child development and psychology to demonstrate how environments that are too rigorous, particularly in lower elementary school grades, often do harm to the learning process. An overemphasis on testing, she says, removes physical movement from the classroom, omits foundational concepts best learned through open-ended lessons, and places demands on teachers that prevent them from establishing emotional connections and trust-based relationships with students. Although Koplow doesn’t present a detailed road map for moving educational leadership away from this mindset, she does offer several examples of possible paths to success—specifically, elementary schools that have the organizational fortitude and community support to place student needs ahead of bureaucratic demands. Such schools, she says, deliver a solid education by both academic and holistic measurements.
A story-driven explanation of the problems of high-stakes testing that will leave readers with hope for more effective educational environments in the future.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1478729808
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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