by Nicholson Baker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016
An affecting (long-exposure) snapshot revealing real-life concerns.
The eminent Maine-based author chronicles his lively, maddening month substitute teaching in the local public schools.
An award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction, Baker (Traveling Sprinkler, 2013, etc.) subbed mostly in the public schools of Lasswell, Maine, near his home over the course of 28 days scattered between March and June 2014. Reading this day-by-day record—the author substitute taught for classes ranging from first grade to special-education high school math—readers will be struck by how arduous it is simply to fill such long days for the young students. Baker’s “training” was mostly a brief course in learning “codes of cooperation” and Common Core standards, abbreviations for learning disabilities, and clues how to control a class (he did not require a special degree for substitute teaching). He had to pay $50 for a criminal background check and fingerprinting and would earn $70 per day subbing, boosted by $5 for taking the initial training course. His book is literally a record of those 28 days, with verbatim conversations (we assume—did he record them? Or re-create them from notes?) that make for an amusing, spontaneous-feeling narrative, from which readers derive a sense of what it was truly like in the classrooms teeming with rowdy, diverse students. Getting the high schoolers to focus—turn off their electronic devices and quit chatting—was the biggest challenge for the older classes, while the younger pupils often moved from one non sequitur to the next. Baker was able to enlist his strengths as a writer to great effect, but he hated the noise level in the classes and the requirements to follow senseless make-work plans that bludgeoned the students’ creativity and spontaneity. Ultimately, the author’s chronicle is insightful but overly long and occasionally repetitive—indeed, Baker has left a record of what filling up days in school actually looks like.
An affecting (long-exposure) snapshot revealing real-life concerns.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16098-1
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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by Norman W. Edmund ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2005
On the doorstep of age 90, Edmund has performed a national service.
An authoritative examination into the collapse of the scientific method in American education and intellectual life, and the resulting collateral damage.
Edmund writes with verve, and adds more than a dollop of spice by offering $100,000 to certain organizations that prove him wrong. He doggedly advances the notion that America’s egghead community–led by influential intellectuals such as James B. Conant (Harvard president, 1933-1953)–perpetrated a monumental blunder in denigrating the use of the scientific method. In turn, writes Edmund, Conant’s crowd opened the doors to the slipshod thinking that has ruined American education. Fads such as “look-say reading instruction,” “new math” and “new new math” followed in a confusing progression that continues to this day in charter schools and the self-esteem movement. Edmund contends that researchers, using scientific methods, should have halted the process in its tracks by determining quickly the winners and losers among these trendy programs, rather than falling for the “do your own thing” philosophy espoused by Conant and crew. Furthermore, the trial and error method taught by natural philosophers and used by classical scientists has not lost its relevance in a “do as you please” world. Edmund is dumfounded by educators’ unwillingness to use testing and analysis to determine what works best in the classroom. Instead, he writes, the useless debate continues unabated, and the blunder continues its proliferation.
On the doorstep of age 90, Edmund has performed a national service.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9632866-6-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Sally O. Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2003
Adorable characters demonstrate the unselfish qualities of true friendship.
A bear’s epic quest for the Golden Pear illuminates valuable life lessons.
Lee (The Cake Thief, 2008, etc.) returns with a spirited animal fable for preschool children that sheds light on basic moral principles. Magdalena is a cuddly white bear who sets off on a quest to find the Golden Pear. She is told by a “reliable source” that before she finds it, she must first learn a few simple lessons about life. Magdalena seeks out the advice of her friends. Edwin the Ant is unable to provide any answers but requests help carrying sand he’ll use to build his home. Henry the Butterfly, with his pink polka dot wings, is equally clueless but needs assistance catching bugs for dinner. Next, Magdalena encounters Samantha the Snake, who doesn’t know much about life lessons. In fact, Samantha doesn’t even know the directions to her own home. Malcolm the Mouse is gathering nuts and seeds for winter, and Magdalena pitches in before moving on to Francine the Fish. But Francine needs to clean up her polluted pond. Although she is quite happy to help her friends out, Magdalena is disheartened when she discovers she is no closer to discovering the location of her much sought-after Golden Pear. Hungry and tired, she heads home. Along the way, she stops to nap beneath a tree that is suddenly filled with golden pears. Magdalena delights in finding the elusive fruit and realizes that she’s discovered life’s simple lessons, and more so, the “secrets of the universe.” Charcoal and color pencil illustrations display soft, chunky crayon-like, folk appeal. Simple full and partial page designs warmly interact with the text’s mood and movement. Although references to the “reliable source” and the “secrets of the universe” are too advanced for the book’s intended audience, the overall effect is both inviting and endearing.
Adorable characters demonstrate the unselfish qualities of true friendship.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2003
ISBN: 978-1594575266
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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