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A SCHOOL OF OUR OWN

Name: A SCHOOL OF OUR OWN
Author: Samuel Levin
ISBN: 978-1-62097-152-9

THE STORY OF THE FIRST STUDENT-RUN HIGH SCHOOL AND A NEW VISION FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION

by Samuel Levin & Susan Engel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016

The concise and passionate story of how a teenager formed his own school that is “intellectually demanding of all its...

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The story behind one young man’s alternative school within a school.

By the time Levin reached his junior year, like many kids his age, he had resigned himself to having a couple of great classes, a few he hated, and the rest that were boring. He had interests outside of school that helped him get through his days, but what made him angry was how those with nothing beyond the regimented school day were missing out on life. They weren’t being stimulated in school and had no projects or part-time jobs to engage them. So Levin took matters into his own hands and started his own school. With the support of his mother, Engel (Developmental Psychology/Williams Coll.; The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood, 2015, etc.), and other adults in his high school—and after months of planning—Levin created the Independent Project, a student-run school. The school focused on the students’ interests and passions rather than required curriculum. Though the plan incorporated some traditional subjects, Levin and his team switched things up by aligning science with the humanities and English with math. In alternating voices, Levin and Engel tell the story of how the IP evolved, giving readers an inside look at the entire journey, including the first irritated moments that sparked the original idea, getting approval from the school board, recruiting students, and initiating a trial semester. The authors address their triumphs, setbacks, fears, and concerns, analyzing the step-by-step process so that others may follow and create their own independently run schools. For those who have investigated home schooling, Levin’s methods are reminiscent of unschooling, the process by which learning occurs on a more personal, interest-driven level, without the need to use conventional grading systems. The authors clearly show that learning can be an invigorating, exciting experience for almost everyone—if approached in the right manner.

The concise and passionate story of how a teenager formed his own school that is “intellectually demanding of all its students, no matter what their academic history.”

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-62097-152-9

Page Count: 224

Publisher: The New Press

Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

Categories:

EDUCATION

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COLD WAR EXILE

THE UNCLOSED CASE OF MAURICE HALPERIN

by Don S. Kirschner ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 1995

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An unusual biography cum investigation of an academic caught up in a Cold War controversy. Kirschner (History/Simon Fraser Univ., British Columbia; The Paradox of Professionalism, not reviewed) initially aimed to help his older colleague Halperin (19061995) write his memoirs. But this story of a McCarthy-era political refugee grew, and the author not only incorporates Halperin's memories but applies his own skeptical sleuthing. Though lucidly written, the book's biographical depth may slow readers mainly curious about whether Halperin did spy for Soviets during WW II. Kirschner sketches Halperin's youth in Boston, the son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, his undergraduate years at Harvard, and teaching stint at the University of Oklahoma, where he became a scholar of Latin America and an ``issue-oriented'' fellow traveler. Halperin was recruited in 1941 as a researcher on Latin America for the federal agency that preceded the OSS and CIA. He went to Boston University in 1949, but in 1953 the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee subpoenaed him, citing testimony by a Soviet courier that he had spied for the Soviets during the war. Halperin took the Fifth Amendment but also denied committing espionage. The author offers intriguing accounts of Halperin's self-imposed exile: five years in Mexico within the community of American expatriate radicals; a three-year stint in the Soviet Union, which soured him on the promise of Communism; a subsequent move to Cuba, where he also concluded that socialism had failed; and his final relocation to Canada—ironically, to a campus seething with socialist slogans. In a final chapter, Kirschner conducts a near-exhaustive lineup of evidence on both sides; he concludes that Halperin was more of an ideologue than he let on and that it ``seems improbable'' that his accuser perjured herself. A minor tale of the Cold War, but well told.

Pub Date: May 10, 1995

ISBN: 0-8262-0989-0

Page Count: 344

Publisher: Univ. of Missouri

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995

Categories:

EDUCATION

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MODERN JAPANESE DIARIES

THE JAPANESE AT HOME AND ABROAD AS REVEALED THROUGH THEIR DIARIES

by Donald Keene ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1995

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Westerners have long complained about the enigmas of Japanese culture. Now comes proof that the puzzlement cuts both ways. Noted Japanologist Keene (On Familiar Terms, 1993, etc.) here interprets 30 Japanese diaries dating from 1860 to 1920, around the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when for the first time in over two centuries the West affected Japanese society on a large scale. At that time, he writes, ``it was as natural for those people to keep diaries as it is for Japanese today to take group photographs as souvenirs of an occasion,'' and from these rich accounts Keene shows that Japanese attitudes toward Western culture ranged from intense curiosity and excitement to complete disdain. Some early travelers found foreign lands to be utterly perplexing, even inscrutable. Complaining of his English hosts' constant attempts to convert him to Christianity, Natsume Sseki writes: ``I wonder who could have invented such a straitlaced society.'' (Keene notes that the Japanese who were most successful abroad were those who had already converted or who did so later.) Provincial governor Muragaki Norimasa, traveling aboard the American warship Powhattan on a goodwill tour of the United States, confesses his hatred for sea chanties and is appalled at the sight of plebeian-looking President James Buchanan: ``He wears no decoration whatsoever...not even a sword.'' Other Japanese found that they hardly recognized their own country after the Meiji Restoration. Keene excavates the plaintive diary of a bedridden young man named Masaoka Shiki, who yearns to see wonderful things that he has only read about in the newspapers: ``lions and ostriches in the zoo'' and ``automatic telephones and red postboxes.'' The diary of Higuchi Ichiy, a learned woman, reveals sadness that in the face of such changes, the women of the upper class still expect her ``to pretend to rejoice over things that do not please me.'' These are the luminous details—not curiosities, thanks to Keene's careful analysis, but real finds—of which the best histories are made.