5 comments about Teaching on Poverty Rock .

1. I just read this funny little book. What a hoot. I grew up on MI went to some public school there until my parents had enough and transfered me to the Seattle Hebrew Academy. The whiners in the other reviews on Amazon must be feeling the finger pointed back at themselves! Apparently, the author and a major motion picture company are in talks to write a screen play and make this a feature film. I wonder who they would get to play that snatch of a mother that features prominently in the book. Can't WAIT for the movie and the Oscar nomination that will surely follow.



2. I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.
   
   While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.
   
   I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.
   
   I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.



3. I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.
   
   While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.
   
   I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.
   
   I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.



4. I have to wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who wrote "Long on venom, short on content." Having recently gone through the island's entire educational system myself, and also being self-admittedly bitter about many of my experiences living on the island, I had hoped that McGowan would bring to light many of the more absurd aspects of life on MI.
   
   While I enjoyed reading the book - a speedy read, with bits of humor here and there - I was left disappointed and even disgusted with McGowan's childish attitude, overbearing bitterness, and the often deragatory remarks attributed toward individuals with whom he interacted. His poor writing skills and glaring grammatical errors only compounded the distaste I felt while reading this. Yes, I was amused with the ridiculous experiences the author described, and boy, could I relate to knowing of such parents in my schooling years, but overall, I found reading "Teaching on Poverty Rock" to be more like reading one man's long-winded complaint more than anything else.
   
   I would still recommend reading this book for insight into one teacher's life, as it is a very quick read. I do wish, however, that the author had written something more substantial and less hateful.
   
   I am also amazed that "Long on venom, short on content"'s review was deemed unhelpful by so many people; I can only surmise that people are not basing their judgement upon whether or not the review was helpful, but moreso in regards to whether it was in favor of the book or not.



5. McGowan has successfully said what I have thought again and again. Although I teach in Seattle, not Mercer Island, much of it rings true with my experiences with those crazy parents with an overdeveloped attitude of entitlement. You'll enjoy this quick read!

No comments about A Feminist Legacy: The Rhetoric and Pedagogy of Gertrude Buck (Studies in Rhetorics and Feminisms).

3 comments about Something's Not Right: One Family's Struggle with Learning Disabilities.

1. This book was an eye-opening read to the world of learning disabilities. Since reading it several years ago, I have become acquainted with the author, who is an incredible person! The calendar she wrote about is available from her, and I have one in my first grade classroom. The children enjoy finding out what we're doing next by looking at the little Teddy-bear pictures. If you are the parent of young children or a teacher of pre-school through first grade, contact her for the calendar. This book is great!



2. The National Institutes of Health estimate that 15 percent of all people have learning disabiliies. I suspect that the number is actually closer to 40-50 percent, if you include difficulties in a specific area (just in reading, math, sequencing or spatial problems). My estimate is based on how many people have trouble performing in one or more areas, even after many years of schooling and effort. For example, about 35 percent of the people in our state read in English below the 8th grade level in proficiency.

   Yet as a society, we tend to act as though everyone learns easily and effortlessly. That makes life tough on the parents and children who are having problems learning. They find that they do not always get the help and emotional support they need. Once discouraged, one can end up accepting performance below one's capability.

   If you are not learning disabled or do not have anyone in your family who is, this book will be a real eye-opener. In one family, three of four children have serious difficulties. The fourth goes on to excel at Harvard. Yet with great determination, endless effort, enormous imagination, and unending commitment, a mother is able to make progress. Some will discount her progress because she obviously had lots of financial resources. This book should be a wake-up call to all of us that we need to do more to support such families, especially when they do not have these financial resources.

   If you or someone in your family does have learning disabilities, this book will be poignant. You will feel the pain more directly. On the other hand, I hope you will grasp the book's encouraging message: Someone out there can help you or your child. But be prepared for many backward steps, side steps, and delays.

   The book mostly focuses on Brian's problems, because he was the most severely affected. As a young child, he had trouble saying words in recognizeable form. With endless energy, he was a nonstop buzz saw. He was constantly hurting himself by running into things, and creating disasters. He was slow to learn almost all of the standard motor skills and to toilet train. Learning was almost impossible for him.

   Eventually, Brian's mother comes to learn that he has no peripheral vision, has trouble conceptualizing except by touching things, needs physical sequencing to grasp order, and requires having things broken down into their simplest elements. She stays the course until these diagnoses are made, and Brian goes to the right school (after many somewhat right and many wrong ones).

   In this book, you'll encounter the independence, tradition, wishful thinking, bureaucratic, communication, disbelief, and procrastination stalls. Nancy Lelewer proves to be a champion stallbuster, and the family goes on to prosper. After he children were older she learned to develop educational games, do learning research, and write this book, despite some learning diabilities of her own. Unfortunately, her marriage did not survive all of these difficulties the children experienced. I suspect that that is not uncommon.

   The book ends with some sound prescriptions for making progress: Early diagnosis; understanding; appropriate remediation; concrete, practical tools; encouraging/reminding person to help; and possibly medication. You will also find a list of organizations that may be able to help.

   I hope everyone will read this book. The awareness the book creates will help open our eyes to the need for more individualized diagnosis and instructional methods if we are to tap the full potential of everyone!




3. Reading this book as part of a class on the lives of people with disabilities, I enjoyed the book. The only thing that I would take it out of the context of the "everyday" experience was the tremendous resources this mother had for her children, three of the four with learning disabilities. (Nearly all of them went to boarding schools, while she stayed at home with them before they went away to school.) Not too technical, but a honest mother's story.

No comments about Universities, Think Tanks and War Colleges.

No comments about Fallen Prince: William James Edwards, Black Education, and the Guest for Afro-American Nationality.

5 comments about Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers (PB) (Readings in Educational Thought).

1. ¨Education, true education, should liberate"
   
   By Richard K. Munro MA, Renshaw Fellow UVA 2004
   
   Null, Wesley and Diane Ravitch, Eds. Forgotten Heroes of American Education , Information Age Publishing, Greenwich Connecticut, 2006
   
   
   
   America, all is not lost. In 1987 we had The Closing of the American Mind by the late Allan Bloom followed by E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, Diane Ravitch's classics Left Back (2000) and The Language Police (2003). 2006 gave us John Dewey and the Decline of American Education by Henry Edmondson and now FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION edited by Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch. Here we have essays -some published for the first time- from great American educators of the so-called "Traditionalist/Essentialist" school such as William Bagley, Isaac Kandel, Charles DeGarmo, and Charles Alexander McMurray among others, including the forgotten essays of the John Dewey in which Dewey criticizes the excesses of some of his colleagues of the liberal-romantic-progressive school. Here, in FORGOTTEN HEROES we have great appeals to the traditional foundations of wisdom, learning and education but also appeals to her scientific, cultural as well as her authentically progressive foundations. These thinkers have much to say to 21st century America about curriculum, teacher training, the foundations of a proper educational philosophy, student discipline, and the purpose of formal schooling in a free society. Ravitch and Null have added splendid short biographies and commentaries not to mention a list of recommended readings.
   Much of the book is dedicated to the vital and still pertinent essays of William Bagley. Like Victor Davis Hanson, Bagley was no mere ivory tower intellectual; he worked in agriculture and owned his own farm. Bagley had wide experience as a classroom teacher, a principal and superintendent. Bagley favored a free liberal education for all Americans regards of their IQ or future occupation. In "The Army Tests and Pro-Nordic Propaganda" Bagley opposed the determinism, extreme social Darwinism and deep racial supremacy of the 1920's as inhumane, un-American and anti-democratic. Bagley's essays CRAFTSMANSHIP IN TEACHING, THE IDEAL TEACHER and EDUCATION AND UTILITY are literary jewels, well-crafted, lucid and informative. Bagley was right to recognize the profound anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism in liberal/romantic/progressive theory. Bagley is a teacher's teacher: he respects the craft of teaching. Bagley understands that teaching is above all a calling and an act of service, sacrifice and love. Teaching could never be an entirely mercenary profession, though a man would say today taking a "vow of poverty" might be going too far! Bagley was one of the first educators to be concerned about the 'blob' the growing non-teaching bureaucracy which considered the classroom teacher to be at the bottom of the profession. Ever the supporter of high educational standards Bagley made a very strong case that the fundamental factor in academic excellence was based on the quality of the classroom teacher.
   Isaac Kandel, another of the "forgotten heroes" made his "Address at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University" in 1940, unpublished until this volume. In this age of terror this address is very timely. In it Kandel calls for an educational philosophy with integrity based on deep gratitude for the practical wisdom, Natural Rights philosophy of the Founders as well as the true roots of the "dignity of the individual", America's Judeo-Christian heritage. Only by recurring to fundamental principles, Kandel believed, could we hope to preserve our free society. Kandel wrote "The basic principles of democracy are rooted in the religious traditions of Jew and Christian alike." "Man ....cannot live on negation...he needs values that have stood the test of time." "Education, true education, should liberate~ it should cultivate the genuinely free man, the man of moral judgment, of intellectual integrity.....intolerance and hatred are the foundations of the new [ totalitarian] ideologies~ Love thy neighbor as thyself is the injunction of the Hebrew prophets and of the Golden Rule." These are just some of the gems from Isaac Kandel on a rigorous curriculum: "It is foolish to except a child to grow up in a right social direction along the lines of his own felt wants as it is to expect a man to find his way in unfamiliar territory without a map or a compass. Organized subject matter constitutes that map..." Kandel on low standards: "the harm done American education by the cult of...superficiality is incalculable." Kandel warns that the disunity in America could come again if we fail to provide an education "to inculcate faith in the ideals of democracy....without well-defined content, [there is]... inevitably... a negation of ideals and faith... a repudiation of the inherited forms of culture and of humanity without which the surface changes in the stream of life are mistaken for the waves of the future." Kandel's essay on "Character Formation" (1959) is one of many outstanding contributions. According to Kandel, an important aim in education throughout history is the ideal of character formation. Kandel writes: "with the declining influence of religious institutions....with the extension of mass media...the task of character formation becomes more and more difficult... all these conflicting influences may be added a certain relaxation of standards, both intellectual and disciplinary...the 'get by' attitude." Kandel is so cultivated and yet so moving and so lucid that for his essays alone FORGOTTEN HEROES would be worth it.
   Recently I was told the story of a well known professor of education who said: "It doesn't matter what they [teachers] know...All that matters is how they teach." In other words process counts not knowledge, not virtue, not wisdom! So it is true the Deweyite Sophists have taken over the academy particularly in "Teacher Ed"! This is just one true life story of the doctrinaire liberals who dominate in Teacher's Colleges. There Deweyite learning or doctrine -by this I mean the Romantic-progressive school -a traditionless tradition- is practically an established religion. As Hanson, Thornton and Heath have written previously in BONFIRE OF THE HUMANITIES; "... the American academic culture is one of the most glaring failures and embarrassments of modern society itself."
   The thesis of FORGOTTEN HEROES is that the tradition of teaching and learning going back to Plato and Aristotle represented by Bagley, Kandel and others has never been extinguished despite the long 20th century ascendancy of Dewey's Liberal-Romantic-Progressive school. The whole point of Bloom, E. D. Hirsch, Null and Ravitch is until teachers improve in quality, and schools improve in discipline and organization all the money in the world will do no good. Disoriented, demoralized American teachers, unprepared by barely relevant teacher education programs, crushed beneath the wheel of a bloated, misguided bureaucracy, unsupported by their own administrations, may have become `weak sisters' (and brothers) in, reading, writing and the ACADEMIC disciplines. Bagley, Kandel and the other FORGOTTEN HEROES knew that well-educated classroom teachers were crucial to the survival and success of the American Republic. FORGOTTEN HEROES OF AMERICAN EDUCATION is truly splendid anthology for specialists or for the general reader. It is not an exaggeration to say FORGOTTEN HEROES is a book that ought to be familiar to every concerned school teacher and wise administrator, every involved parent and thoughtful citizen and every dedicated civic and community leader.
   
   June 22-July 2 2006



2. J.Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have, through compiling this masterful collection of readings, provided a wonderful resource for those of us who want to fundamentally change teacher education in the United States. Since the early part of the 20th Century, what would later become colleges of education, have been dominated by the often-misapplied progressive theories associated with John Dewey. The results of this intellectual dominance include a lack of respect for academic subject matter, a fuzzy romanticism focused upon teachers as societal change agents, and a lowering of standards for aspiring teachers. Progressive orthodoxy so dominates education colleges that future teachers often don't even learn the counter arguments the "forgotten heroes" of this book so effectively make.
   
   Anyone who is involved in the preparation of teachers and is a proponent of such common-sense notions as the paramount role of academic content in teaching, high standards for students, and the teacher's responsibility for academic and moral classroom leadership, should buy this book. Although the most recent essay was penned in 1960, the arguments of these intellectual opponents of the then-emerging progressive conventional wisdom are, for the most part, as fresh today as when written. Carefully reflect upon the essays of such master teachers and scholars as William C. Bagley and Issac L. Kandel who are included in the anthology. Then, if you are involved in teacher education make sure your students experience the genuine intellectual diversity represented in the contents of this book. This is a useful tool in the mounting effort within many education schools to end the progressive intellectual monopoly.



3. J. Wesley Null and Diane Ravitch have co-edited a superlative book of the best of those " forgotten heroes " who, many years ago, established the great tradition of teaching teachers. Null and Ravitch have crafted the selected writings of William C. Bagley, Charles De Garmo, William Torrey Harris, Isaac Leon Kandel,Charles Alexander McMurry, William C. Ruediger and Edward Austin Sheldon. If you have never heard of these names, then it is time that educators are exposed to their seminal ideas. If you are familiar with their ideas and conceptions, then this text will reinvigorate and reinforce the importance of their work and theorizing. These authors have a clear, pristine vision of what education could and should be. These authors have crafted their essays into invigorating, stimulating, energizing monuments to the work of pedagogy. In these essays, one is exposed to " marvelous alliteration of the liquid consonants" as well as to " the beauty of their grandeur or the nobility of their underlying thoughts". This book should be read three times- once for the intellectual and historical understanding of their work, once for the stimulating writing style and once to understand the foundations of educational thought and the importance of educational theory and history. In this age of " No Child Left Behind" we need to emphasize the importance of not leaving any " Forgotten Heroes of American Education " behind. Parents whose children are considering the teaching profession may want to present this book to their high school or college offspring to provide them with a foundation and understanding of American education and those who sculpted the basics of American teacher training. This book is a superlative example of "the best of some of America's greatest thinkers as well as teacher trainers". It is hoped that this book will enable educators to keep alive the thoughts of Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Rousseau, Herbart and Froebel in the current educational climate. The profession owes a sincere " thank you " to Null and Ravitch for this impeccably edited, thought provoking text.



4. This is a very important book for people interested in American education. The book helps us to move beyond the sad complaining that goes on these days when the topic of public education is brought up. Anytime education comes up among my friends, all that anyone does is complain. Our situation is certainly bad, but this book will actually help us to improve things. The heroes, as they call them, that Diane Ravitch and J. Wesley Null have included in the book have some very important things to say to us. They fought against the nonsense that has done so much damage, but they also did more than complain. The book includes some real ideas for helping us to move beyond griping to making things better by giving us more teachers who are well-prepared to teach in today's difficult culture. Read this book, and I say suggest it to your friends, especially if they are in education. Any book that Ravitch is involved with should be taken seriously by people who care about education.



5. This book has the potential to revolutionize teacher education. Null and Ravitch have put together some very powerful essays that have a lot to teach us about curriculum, teacher education, philosophy, and the history of education. Everyone involved in teacher education must read this book. I am a teacher, and every teacher who cares about our profession also should read this book as well. And the price is reasonable, too--especially for a 650 page book.

5 comments about Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Educator Activists, 1880-1960 (Athene Series).

1. Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Educator Activists, 1880-1960. M.S. Crocco, P. Munro and K. Weiler. New York and London: Teacher College, 1999. 132 pp.

   The period in which six extraordinary women educators were very active was a crucial one in the history of the United States. It happened in the preliminary development of feminism: women's club, suffrage and civil rights organization, teachers' associations, settlement houses and the suffrage, which eventually won the vote for white women. The book begins with the time during which women like Jane Addams and Ida B Wells developed their views of education as a wide-ranging endeavor that could be the basis for social change. Within public education, leaders like Elizabeth Almira Allen of New Jersey fought for public school women teachers' right to job security and pensions. Although they were well-educated, reflective, and articulate leaders, Wells and Marion Thompson Wright were constantly placed as both different and inferior because of their gender and race. Pedagogies of Resistance strand them on its key note as women of strength by portraying how they were both empowered by the possibilities of educational careers, but at the same time they were alienated and consistently demeaned, as their authority was continually undercut by their caste status. As for Wright, she also had to face the entrenched sexism of Howard University, where she taught. Crocco, Munro & Weiler, furthermore encompasses how "(Corrine) Seed's and (Helen) Heffernan's challenge to the established social order manifested itself not only in their advocacy of progressive and democratic schools of California, but also in their willingness to defend outsiders groups such as the children of migrant farm workers during the Depression or Japanese American children during the World War II relocation."

   The authors accomplishes their purpose of illuminating and highlighting courageous lives and work of six activist women educators during 1880 to 1960, as educational leaders and professionals. They convey how these women's collective focus and vision of education developed a base for establishing lessons of democracy. Providing all members of society with the same sense of empowerment these six women themselves had found was in sharp contrast to dominant ideas of the elite intellects at the time. "Their advance ideas about democracy foreshadowed the arguments of the current multicultural education movement that democracy must be multiple, inclusive, and collective. This was a time of intense conflict over the shape and purpose of education, as radical unions and socialist organizations, intellectuals and teachers and academics influenced Deweyan ideas contested the growing dominance of conceptions of standardization and social efficiency (Crocco, Munro & Weiler, 1999, p.118). These women educators did not just implement other's ideas of progressive education, their contribution and work extended the provincial concept of what progressive education meant in domains not previously considered.

   In conclusion, the reader will perceive that the book's central theme is set and accomplished with Munro's persuasive stance on page 21. She writes, "I contend that these collective efforts at building community were a form of democracy in action. Interactions among academics, women's clubs, and immigrants served an important educational function by providing a mechanism for people of various classes to `speak together' as a means for widening understanding of different communities and enlarging active involvement in the work of social change (Crocco, Munro & Weiler, 1999)." These network and organizations shaped women's culture and identity that was pivotal to America's social and political development. The authors build the book well on this social-political development in the early 20th century as it influenced educational reform and theories of curriculum to rethinking educational history from an alternate perspective.




2. The authors of the book, Pedagogies of Resistance, tell a tale about six women educator activists from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Crocco, Munro, and Weiler tale a tell which depicts their struggles and triumphs, the pitfalls they encounter, to which one ultimately succumbs, the mountains they not only climb, but stand strong at the summit, reaching it with pride, dignity, and courage, and finally attempts to capture the souls of these women as they try to make a better world for us... one that puts education first. It's a tale recounting how reform was enacted, how it developed and how it evolved to transform schools, districts, government, education, and people. Women stood strong in their beliefs and fought to change the way society treated not only women, but also immigrants and migrant workers. For example, the Hull House, which was established by Jane Addams, "... was grounded in the understanding that meaningful learning and social action occurred only when education allowed learners to define their own needs and acknowledged women, immigrants, and migrants as creators of knowledge" (p. 9). The main belief and notion throughout this book stressed the importance of men not being the only successful activists within the American educational system. The authors noted that though these women were strong, the "... power remained in the hands of a small circle of males" (p. 51).

   One person, however, detailed in the book is not notable or noteworthy in my opinion... Marion Thompson Wright. Though Ms. Wright was a scholar and an academician, she gave up her children, two husbands, and literally her life for a quest of equality within the university system. She fought to be a professor in a man's world... in a world where Black women were supposed to be subservient and ill educated. Wright believed that all people should be extended the right to an education and the right for social justice and equality. She "... trusted that the democratic process, through the energetic advocacy of individuals like herself, could fulfill its promise of social and racial justice for all citizens" (p. 70). Yes, she was a model of success within academia, but she had to lie to be able to achieve that success. The price for that lie... her family, her sanity, and her morality. Eventually, she paid the highest price possible and took her own life. Though her success professionally is noted, I do not consider her achievements noteworthy or admirable.

   Though the stories the author's tell continue to perpetuate the idea that we did and continue to live in a patriarchal society, the also help show how women stand up and fight for their beliefs, values, and ideas. Most books recount the tales of men and how they triumph to create or establish new schools, ideologies, and laws... most books forget to mention the female activists who fought at the same time for those same rights for all people, regardless of race, gender or class. Crocoo, Munro, and Weiler enable others to gain insight into the lives, struggles, and achievements of six women, who for their time period, were ahead of the game.




3. The authors of the book, Pedagogies of Resistance, tell a tale about six women educator activists from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Crocco, Munro, and Weiler tale a tell which depicts their struggles and triumphs, the pitfalls they encounter, to which one ultimately succumbs, the mountains they not only climb, but stand strong at the summit, reaching it with pride, dignity, and courage, and finally attempts to capture the souls of these women as they try to make a better world for us... one that puts education first. It's a tale recounting how reform was enacted, how it developed and how it evolved to transform schools, districts, government, education, and people. Women stood strong in their beliefs and fought to change the way society treated not only women, but also immigrants and migrant workers. For example, the Hull House, which was established by Jane Addams, "... was grounded in the understanding that meaningful learning and social action occurred only when education allowed learners to define their own needs and acknowledged women, immigrants, and migrants as creators of knowledge" (p. 9). The main belief and notion throughout this book stressed the importance of men not being the only successful activists within the American educational system. The authors noted that though these women were strong, the "... power remained in the hands of a small circle of males" (p. 51).

   One person, however, detailed in the book is not notable or noteworthy in my opinion... Marion Thompson Wright. Though Ms. Wright was a scholar and an academician, she gave up her children, two husbands, and literally her life for a quest of equality within the university system. She fought to be a professor in a man's world... in a world where Black women were supposed to be subservient and ill educated. Wright believed that all people should be extended the right to an education and the right for social justice and equality. She "... trusted that the democratic process, through the energetic advocacy of individuals like herself, could fulfill its promise of social and racial justice for all citizens" (p. 70). Yes, she was a model of success within academia, but she had to lie to be able to achieve that success. The price for that lie... her family, her sanity, and her morality. Eventually, she paid the highest price possible and took her own life. Though her success professionally is noted, I do not consider her achievements noteworthy or admirable.

   Though the stories the author's tell continue to perpetuate the idea that we did and continue to live in a patriarchal society, the also help show how women stand up and fight for their beliefs, values, and ideas. Most books recount the tales of men and how they triumph to create or establish new schools, ideologies, and laws... most books forget to mention the female activists who fought at the same time for those same rights for all people, regardless of race, gender or class. Crocoo, Munro, and Weiler enable others to gain insight into the lives, struggles, and achievements of six women, who for their time period, were ahead of the game.




4. The book Pedagogies of Resisitance highlights the efforts of six accomplished female educators. The book portrays each woman effectively both in their personal life and their professional life. The accounts of the journeys that these women embarked on give us a true picture of what it means to be a progressive education activist in the Progressive Era and today. It also provides today's teachers with true accounts of how to be a maker of change. The women in this book were also forced to confront their own ideas of education and what it means to be a professional and to have a career.
   In Jane Adams and Ida B. Wells, we meet two women whose work in settlement houses and women's clubs seek to promote a vision of education that was community based and directed toward social equality - an effort that was largely ignored by educational history. Marion Thompson Wright and Elizabeth Almira Allen enlisted others in their work that created a grass roots movement that collectively resisted centralized forms of education and supported a vision of education of social equality. For their work, they received less professional recognition than men in their field did. Their views created controversy and as a result, their personal lives remained scarred.
   Helen Heffernan and Corinne Seeds were committed to social equality and saw public education as central to that task. For their accomplishments and struggles they have been rewarded by being forgotten, largely due to their gender.
   From the stories of these women, we truly see how women struggled for a voice and for equality while instituting reform. "In complex and constrained cultural milieus, women have managed to create expressions of feminist agency shaped by their own historical specificity and human particularity."



5. Book Review of Pedagogies of Resistance: Women Educator Activists, 1880-1960
   By Margaret Smith Crocco
   Petra Munro
   Kathleen Weiler

   This book portrays the lives of six women. Each fought for social justice and in some way influenced our educational system. Munro gave a different perspective of what an educator activist was by including Addams and Wells. They were known for women's clubs and settlement houses. The work of these ladies influenced education although the brunt of their activities did not occur in a school or as formal teachers.
   Crocco shared the difficult lives of Elizabeth Allen and Marion Wright as they fought gendered norms of the time. Allen was involved in many associations and fought for issues such as tenure, pensions, and a disability system. The stress in Allen's life may have caused her death. Wright, an African American woman, is recognized for her dissertation. She gave up her children in order to continue to climb the educational ladder. She committed suicide possibly due to consequences of her struggles and guilt of leaving her children. Her life is an example of the price that women had to pay to break out of gendered (and racial) norms. However, the fact that she chose to pretend her children did not exist makes you feel less empathy for her and makes her harder to relate to.
   Weiler told of the lives of Helen Heffernan and Corinne Seeds. Both women influenced education in California. They worked to educate teachers and progressively reform education. Weiler also shares how they worked to create a more egalitarian society through their work in education.

5 comments about SUMMERS WITH JULIET.

1. I would easily put this book among the best that I have ever read. The images that Roorbach uses keep coming back to me even though it has been well over a year since I read it. The honesty of his writing is amazing, and there were many, many times that I had to pause because the emotional descriptions were so true. Read this book-- by the end you will feel like an old friend at Roorbach's wedding, and you will be glad not to have missed it.



2. This memoir records the struggles of a young writer trying to find his literary voice by portraying his distraction, frustrations, and devotions to his art through his adventures with his future wife as they encounter a variety of people and animals--turkeys, turtles, hummingbirds, and bluefishes--in many beautiful natural environments. Their adventures are always fascinating andamusing, and, at times, exciting.



3. This memoir records the struggles of a young writer trying to find his literary voice by portraying his distraction, frustrations, and devotions to his art through his adventures with his future wife as they encounter a variety of people and animals--turkeys, turtles, hummingbirds, and bluefishes--in many beautiful natural environments. Their adventures are always fascinating andamusing, and, at times, exciting.



4. This book is a paper plane, it will take you away. From the first page, Bill Roorbach takes us on a wonderful journey during a time of his life, when he first meets his wife Juliet in Martha's Vineyard. It becomes a wonderful, weird, chaotic time for both. This book will make you honestly laugh out loud, and shake your head in disbelief, at the experiences and adventures that these two people take on. It is filled with nature in all it's glory, and sometimes not so glorious. This is a man that writes the way we think. The conversations that he has with himself are so lively, and funny that you will want to shake his hand heartily and say "Yes, Yes, I know just what you mean" Read it, it's worth every word.



5. This is a wonderful story of one man's memories of the beginning of his true love life. Roorbach is a compelling writer in the essay style of Russell Baker, who offers his readers much in terms of language and story-telling ability. We, too, learn to love Juliet and touch the unique feelings that make this couple worthy of our attention. Perfect reading outside on a summer afternoon

5 comments about Zig: The Autobiography of Zig Ziglar.

1. This was the first book I've read by Zig Ziglar. This very charming book details his childhood in America's rural South in the midst of the Depression, his early adult years, and adulthood. I'll write about the book in reverse chronological order.
   
   I especially enjoyed the part about his early adulthood, where he writes honestly about the uncertainty he went through. His adulthood part was interesting as well, although he tended to compress the 40+ years a little too much. After chronicling his childhood so meticulously, the later parts of the book seem a bit lacking in detail.
   
   His writing about his early childhood was very entertaining, a little sentimental, and excessively moralizing. Zig had a lot of mentors and learned valuable lessons, but he tends to stretch them too thin and draw almost too many morals to them. That he learned a lot about character and whatnot is unsurprising (he is a motivational speaker, after all), but it gets somewhat boring, a contrast to his humorous and vivacious "See You at the Top!
   
   For this, I give Zig an "excellent rating", which corresponds to 4 out of 5 stars in my humble book.



2. Zig is a very humble man. He tells the story of his life in stages that are inspirational in that the mundane things in life are all part of the whole that we experience. The early years in his life are full of mishaps in his opinion, yet lead to a logical place that may not have existed otherwise.
   
   His story of his older daughter's (Suzan's) illness and death, and the reaction of some of his mentors and partners in understanding, is one of the most touching renditons I have ever read and it is beatifully preserved by his younger daughter (Julie - you kind of feel the hominess of the family in the reading of this book) who edits his writing.
   
   Also, "The Wall of Gratitude", and how each person on it influenced him is another unselfish display of how he has become who he is. It is as if these mentors of his should have their pictures hung in many more dens/offices throughout the country because of their influence to him that he has passed to so many others.
   
   I met Zig and felt his sincerety in his conversation with me that I hope to duplicate in all I do - that's how good the meeting was! I can see why God called him to do what he does. In his autobiography he states all of the facts (and faults) of his personal life unashamedly. I do not think I could have shared some of the things he shared; too personal, but, his humility is seemingly endless.
   
   I first saw Zig in a sports motivational video in high school in the seventies. I got a lot of motivation out of it. It has stuck with me for all of these years: yet I was amused and amazed me to read about the experiences he had around that time and to the time at the end of this book.
   
   Obviously this review has come three years after the last one, yet it should show how timeless this story is, and, like Zig's salvation, it truly is "better late than never."



3. I was exposed to Zig's philosophy some years ago and have read See You at the Top more than once. His "Check up from the Neck up" and the need to prevent "Hardening of the Attitudes" and "Stinkin Thinkin" are well ingrained. This was an interesting read and learning about his background and history was very well laid out and informative.



4. Zig's life was a great testament to what he teaches. He walks the walk. His life is in balance, and even through tragedy, still reached out to make a difference for all lives he touched through his motivational seminars. His character is outstanding, and his level of integrity speaks for itself.

   This book shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. Life has not always been rosy for Zig, but he is living proof that you can overcome anything. As he always says: "you can have anything you want if you just help enough people get what they want".

   This book shows that Zig has faults just like the rest of us, and he makes that really clear in this book. He is humble and in some cases ashamed of some of his past behavior. No sugar coating in this one. The fact that he is such a strong christian is also satisfying to those of us who are believers. He makes it very clear who gets the credit for all of the blessings in his life.

   This book is a great read, and will be hard to put down if you are a fan. True to form, it's humorous with only a hint sorrow in some parts. He really is an amazing person.




5. If you ever need an inspirational help of great success in life then I would recommend Zig Ziglar. Ziglar is author of best-seller, 'I'll See You At The Top' and many other motivational books, has helped thousands improve their lives to achieve that success in every aspect of living. As you read his auto-biography you'll learn about his remarkable story how he beat the odds and applied it to the teachings of Jesus Christ. You will learn to take the next step in your plan and keep God's plan at the center of your plans just as Zig did. His approach is a down-home, wholesome manner with the business savvy of a wise, honest salesman. Most of what he learn of being successful and the importance of networking with honest and wise mentors. The first part of the book tells of his early life and the family that shaped his destiny. In his early adult years he was hard-working and used his knowledge to make money and there were times he made financial mistakes as a result of foolish decisions. This was a time God wasn't a part of his life where his life had no meaning or purpose. The last part of the book, is about his change in life when he reflected back on the moral values in his early childhood and his mother. He then gave his life to Christ. He then found his purpose as a public speaker. From then on instead of his self-centered ambition he gave it all to God. And Zig has been successful ever since. Like Norman Vincent Peale, Zig applied biblical principles to the goals he has with the plans God manifest in the center of his life. Zig's secret is never quit, have faith in God and a whole lotta love. He's a mentor you can trust with a solution. Wish there were more like Zig.

No comments about The Life and Legacy of Fred Newton Scott (Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy and Culture).