3 comments about Meeting the Tree of Life: A Teachers' Path.

1. I read this book for the first time when I was in my last semester of graduate work at Kansas State University. I was about to graduate with an M.A. in English that I had no idea how I was going to use. Tallmadge's autobiographical tale of his struggles with nature, self, career, and others encapsulates perfectly the agonizing dilemma that strikes any teacher with the slightest amount of idealism still in their blood. He wants to be true to himself, to, as Joseph Campbell put it, "follow [his] bliss." But he keeps getting derailed: first by the army, and then by a succession of teaching jobs that seem intent on crushing the budding idealism out of his teaching methodology.
   While the book is at times a bit overly idealistic and starry-eyed, you can't help but admire the enthusiasm and passion with which Tallmadge tries to instill his passion for nature in his students. He's the kind of teacher that any lover of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, or modern writers like Terry Tempest Williams, Leslie Marmon Silko, or the like would immediately take to. He wants his students to understand their connection, not only with the land, but with each other, as a community of learners as well as a community of human beings. And then, at the end, when everything seems to fall apart, he finds solace in the simplest of items: a jack pine cone. I'd say more about that, but I don't want to ruin the moment of revelation that comes at the end.
   Sufficed to say that "Meeting the Tree of Life" will leave you with a greater appreciation as well as understanding of the complex relationships that exist within nature as well as within the human soul. Like this review the book can be a little overly flowery at times, but the understanding that comes with reading this book makes those moments of saccharine sweetness almost pleasant. Give this book a try and I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed.



2. Tallmadge uses the events of his own life to illustrate mankind's connection to the environment and the necessity of wilderness. Writing in the spirit of his admired predecessors, Thoreau, John Muir, Edward Abbey, and Aldo Leopold; Tallmadge attempts to find his own unique voice in the enlightenment of his experience. At times he may get a little too "intimate with the rock", but he leaves the reader an optimistic feeling of the joy of discovery and knowledge.



3. On-Line Review by Leo Goldman, Natural Resources Defense Council.:

   In one way, this book is in the tradition of the author's admired nature writers -- such folk as Emerson, Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. But the framework is an autobiography, beginning with brief mention of his childhood in suburbs, which he describes almost as if they were crowded cities, and from which he began to escape at age 15 to backpacking and climbing. A college student during the Vietnam War, he later sought in wilderness "authenticity" and " a model for just and sustainable human societies" -- which he did not see in the world he and his friends had grown up in.

   He begins the detailed story with a difficult High Sierra climb -- between his military service (having volunteered for a program of Russian studies and intelligence work in order to avoid Vietnam itself) and graduate school. As he seeks for understanding of his motivations and feelings, he speaks first of challenge, thrill, danger, and athletic pleasure, but eventually realizes that he has become a naturalist, appreciating nature in all its complexity, not just the physical challenges and dramatic views. We follow his wilderness explorations, first in the mountains of the southwest during his first three years as a professor in Utah, then his disappointment in leaving the mountains for his next job, in Minnesota. There, however, he develops an appreciation of the wilderness of the flat country, mostly in canoe trips.

   Certainly an offbeat English professor, he had his students read nature writing, then accompany him on difficult treks to mountains and lakes, and return to write about their experiences. This approach was not appreciated by his colleagues, who apparently preferred traditional methods of teaching literature and writing. He ends this volume with the shock of being denied tenure -- but finds new awareness in the metaphor of a pine cone that releases its new life only in fire.

5 comments about Ms. Moffett's First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America.

1. The book,Ms. Moffett's First Year, Becoming A Teacher in America, was exactly as presented by seller. Title of the book is misleading, due to the fact, there was too much rhetoric in the beginning of the book about politics and finance in NYC school system.



2. This book, like most cheerful teacher writing, suffers from an overabundance of mushy anecdotes and 'tug at you heart strings' bathos.
   
   Perhaps if the author had focused the spotlight (critically) on herself and on the dubious policies that placed her in these troubled 'inner-city' NYC public schools-without so much as one day classroom training-we as readers would be saddled with one less memoir, and policy-makers, parents, and concerned citizens would understand the importance of re-professionalizing teaching and taking it out of the hands of hobbyists and corporate managers.



3. I was a new teacher in a difficult Baltimore school, and this book was very unrealistic and only scratched the surface of the problem. Ms. Moffett is an angel and to be admired, but the author Abby Goodnough Hollywood-izes her experience and really waters down the problems in inner city schools.
   
   I felt the author didn't really understand the experience of new teachers. She doesn't get into the student's lives at all. She doesn't seem to be upset or outraged by the terrible treatment of Ms. Moffett by the administration. And-- at the end-- she glosses over the fact that most of Ms. Moffett's colleagues leave the profession within a couple of years, meaning that hundreds of students still won't have teachers. This is deeply unfair to the students, but this book skims right over that injustice.
   
   This book is a simple, nice read, but it was not hardhitting enough and it gives no concrete advice or guidance to new teachers.



4. This book is written in a breezy, popular style that kept me turning pages right to the end. However, the content is serious, and should be of interest to parents, prospective teachers, and to anyone who cares about children. The book is partly the story of one woman's initiation into the challenging work of teaching in a troubled city school. It is also a book about the politics of education. The author does a good job of explaining the many and varied political forces at work within the world of public schools. I think this book is a fair-minded and very readable introduction to a very complex subject.



5. I, too, was a New York City Teaching Fellow, and this book tells it like it is in America's urban schools.
   
   If you are already a teacher, this book will reaffirm everything you already know about the ups and downs of this most challenging and rewarding job. When your friends and loved ones ask what you do every day, just give them this book to read.
   
   If you are not a teacher, then you need to read this book to see what's really going on in our country's most troubled schools. It's all here -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.

5 comments about Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last Frontier.

1. I read this book a little over a year ago, so it is not exactly fresh in my mind, but I must say I disagree with most of the other reviewers here.
   
   If you looked at every book's page on Amazon, you would see that the vast, vast majority of books have an average user ranking of 4 or 5 stars. I think this is because someone who picks up a book and think its junk won't bother to finish it, and rarely would bother to write a review. What ends up happening is that only those people who like a book rank it, and therefore almost everything gets a high ranking. Well, I didn't like this book, but I will take the time to write a review.
   
   Parts of this book are entertaining, especially those dealing with moving his boat from SE Alaska to Bristol Bay, and some of the discussion on fishing. Overall, however, it seems that the author does a poor job of describing the natural majesty of his surroundings nor about the internal conflict of a man embarking on a new life.
   
   Most annoying, however, is the author's slippage into the 3rd person when he describes drinking and 'adult partying' (don't know what words amazon will let me use here) when the rest of the book is in the 1st person. The narrator shows up at a party, and then all of a sudden it is someone else who is sleeping around on his wife.
   
   Anyway, if you want to read a good book about fishing up in Alaska, check out Joe Upton's 'Alaska Blues'.



2. Great read for anyone who wants to get a flavor of the Alaska life and great figurative return for those who have lived it. It is also great literature because he was an English professor.



3. While this is a better book that the second one, there is still something lacking. Depth I suppose. The fishing stories are good but I'm afraid the actual techniques and day-to-day trials are glossed over with tales of drunkeness. The characters are accurately portrayed, but each year is a rerun of the last, a quick summary of the same. Frankly, for all of Durr's qualifications this is the one theme that I can't help but think carries on to this day: The acid Leary professor drops out and stays out. But life is what happens between the parties. During this period, at least I know how he made a living, which is what dismayed me with the Coldman Cometh: thirty-five years of successful bush living on imaginary income, from the readers' perspective. He doesn't share finances here either though so we don't know what he made from the fishing trips.
   
   Staying in Alaska without money is tough. And with a family to support even more impossible, yet Durr seems to go about it as if there's nothing to it; the path of least resistence he describes to Pope, but in Alaska there is a great deal of resistence always. I can hear him try to justify the scheme to his late wife who never says anything or gives him a hard time about the difficulties of living on the edge like that, but Durr rarely reveals anything of this nature. He's very much secretive, which is a motivating force for the retreat to Chase and Back-Lake. I found the Durrs to be stand-offish in 1976, suspicious of newcomers to the land, even fellow "hippie" brothers. This may be due to personal paranoia and the more-people-coming fear, which is the message I got. As it turns out Durr managed to outlast the other '70s settlers in Chase of which I was one, albeit briefly. That evidently was what he wanted in the first place.



4. This book is a describes a man's struggle to break from the "creature comforts" world to live and fish in Bristol Bay, Alaska. It told a story that was captivating because when reading, you always wanting to know what was going to happen next. The story tells of a man who achieves having the best of both worlds ands puts the utimate dream to the test. I would highly recommend this book to all adventurists and those who would like to "escape" to the alaska frontier; if not in reality, then through this book.



5. This is a great little book and a fun read. It takes a lot of guts to do what Bob Durr did. His descriptions of the Alaskan bush and the people who live and work there are wonderful. Everyone should meet a person like Pope at least once in their lives. The philosophical discussions on board the fishing boat were sometimes tedious and less than believable, but somehow it all works. I hope Durr will write another book about the rest of his life in Alaska.

1 comments about The Dons: Mentors, Eccentrics and Geniuses.

1. Annan provides memorable portraits of many Oxbridge dons, even as he shows how different from our own were the eras in which these men (and, far too belatedly, women) worked. For example, consider the following:

   ** The two opiates to be avoided at all costs were love of success and a preoccupation with money. Lowes Dickinson's most famous pupil was E. M. Forster, who in his novels tooks Dickinson's ideas a stage further; and he summarised the King's [College] ethos by saying that it was a place that "taught the perky boy that he was not everything and the limp boy that he might be something." **

   Alas, this is not _our_ era . . .

   The book is also packed with amusing quotes from the dons themselves, such as the following message from one don to another:

   ** On our return last night I found as I thought that a spider had crawled out of the inkstand over a piece of paper; but it turns out to be a hieroglyphic from which I so far interpreted as to perceive it was an invitation to meet some professor whose name as you wrote it looked somewhat indecent. I shall be happy to wait on you and take the opportunity of learning the Eyptian mode of writing. **

   Annan's book is ultimately an elegy because Margaret Thatcher, among others, did so much to ruin the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

1 comments about Reversals: A Personal Account of Victory over Dyslexia.

1. REVERSALS is the story of a woman who, though quite bright, had an impossible time learning to read and spell. She didn't find out till she was in her 20s that she had dyslexia. In my opinion, Eileen Simpson was--and is--one courageous and resilient lady. Because she grew up during an era when dyslexia, and LD in general, was unheard of, she was the victim of repeated misunderstandings. She was repeatedly accused of being lazy, careless, unmotivated, etc. In fact, her 4th-grade year was the worst school year she ever endured, due to a strict, authoritarian teacher and an equally strict aunt. That she never gave up, and was able to learn to read and spell in the end, is tribute to both her strength AND her intelligence. For finding the courage to disclose her dyslexia for the benefit of others when it would have been so much easier to keep trying to hide it, I applaud her. To anyone who wants to learn about LD and its effect on those who have it, I highly recommend her book!

No comments about Beatrice Paolucci: Shaping Destiny through Everyday Life.

5 comments about Learning to Fly: Reflections on Fear, Trust, and the Joy of Letting Go.

1. If you are more influenced by books that show rather than by books that tell, add this one to your list.
   
   Keen gently unfolds his ideas of meeting the challenge of life changes and thriving through a gently told memoir of his experience of becoming a flying trapeze artist at the age of 62. The word artist is important here: an artist is one who strives for beauty, although he may not be the most accomplished of his co-strivers. The effort, and the successes that do occur, are enough.
   
   Those who have found themselves dangling at the end of a parachute, kayaking a gorge, learning to run, or learning to surf at midlife or beyond will recognize the drive for efficiency and beauty in ones own bodies' actions.
   
   This lovely metaphor for life has given new context to my own: I don't ask for more.



2. At age 62, Sam Keen learned to fly. In 1993, he started his training on the flying trapeze at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. The fact that he was the oldest student at the school did not deter Keen from pursuing his "strange passion" (p. 15). "Over the years," he observes," I have discovered that it is hazardous to ignore passing fantasies and emerging passions. To begin with, in the degree that I cease to pursue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears. When passion no longer waters and nurtures the psyche, fears spring up like weeds on the depleted soil of abandoned fields. I suspect the major cause of depression and despair and the appetite for violence in modern life is the result of the masses of people who are enslaved by an economic order that rewards them for laboring at jobs that do not engage their passion for creativity and meaning" (pp. 16-17).
   
   Part memoir, part metaphor, Keen's book is filled with daring leaps, midair turns, somersaults, and catches. For Keen, the trapeze is a good teacher. From his six-year love affair with the trapeze, he derives insights into fear, trust, letting go, and what it means to live life passionately. If we learn to live life as a "ten-ring circus," he writes, in "a world ruled by enchantment--where magic existed before morality, wonder before worship, pleasure before piety, and amazement before practicality" (p. 24), then we will be "transformed, changed back into children whose horizons are open" (p. 25). "The Great Path is a spiral journey," Keen notes. "Every day we begin again, knowing that danger and death may be lurking, that we will be fearful and will need to cultivate courage. We will need to keep our balance and discern when it is time to wait and when to act. We will take leaps of faith, fall, and rise again. If we are diligent in our practice, there will be unexpected moments of grace and joy and a gradual growth of mastery in fashioning our lives into something of beauty" (p. 241).
   
   Keen's LEARNING TO FLY is inspirational and insightful. Although reading it did not inspire me to attempt a triple somersault, it did encourage me to find a flying trapeze in my own life, and then to practice it, knowing that "practice is perfect" (p. 237).
   
   G. Merritt



3. Everyone who reads Keen knows he writes very well and from the heart. But in this book his very soul flies through the air with his words. When Sam reviewed my book, PRIMAL AWARENESS, he said it was an adventurous search for the lost ark. LEARNING TO FLY is about finding the lost ark.



4. I read a passage from the book at my daughter's wedding and then I wished them wings and flight. I found this book to be absolutely fascinating and, at age 57 myself, found inspiration to try new ideas. Learning to Fly is never boring. I found the chapter-beginning drawings helpful as I tried to follow Sam Keen in flight, literally as well as figuratively. A real winner!



5. I read Sam Keen's "Learning to Fly" out loud with my husband over the course of a few road trips. It was a truly amazing experience for us. Sam Keen shares his experiences of life and trapeze in a philosophical way, but avoids being pedantic or condescending with his message about simultaneously taking hold and letting go. I've been thinking about what Sam Keen has to say ever since I finished the book.

No comments about Straddling Worlds: The Jewish-American Journey of Professor Richard W. Leopold.

No comments about John Henrik Clarke: Master Teacher.

No comments about Subject to Fiction: Women Teachers' Life History Narratives and Cultural Politics of Resistance (Feminist Educational Thinking Series).