An important and eye-opening book that all parents, teachers, and educational administrators should read.
A revealing exploration of the current state of the teaching profession.
In her latest, Robbins, bestselling author of The Nurses, The Overachievers, Pledged, Fraternity, and other behind-the-scenes examinations, takes us into schools in America. The author followed three teachers from various regions of the country over the course of a school year, and she interviewed hundreds of others, providing an intimate view into the daily lives of educators. Even before the pandemic, writes Robbins, “the education landscape had already darkened considerably.” The rapidly deteriorating conditions at schools during the pandemic led to an exodus of many well-qualified educators from the profession as well as a shortage of substitute teachers. The pandemic also “further exposed the nation’s shameful mistreatment of teachers, which remains underaddressed.” According to the research that Robbins presents in this book, teachers are often subjected to toxic working conditions while they struggle to educate our nation’s children and are not offered the same respect as people in other professions. Teachers often face outrageous and overwhelming demands from parents and administrators as well as hostile cliques and bullying from co-workers. In addition to violence in schools, they now must contend with the growing movements to ban books and censor classroom material. Despite the increased demands and responsibilities placed on teachers, including the pressures of standardized testing and larger class sizes, they continue to remain underpaid. Refreshingly, the author also spotlights teachers who have chosen to remain in the profession despite the myriad challenges, sharing inspiring stories from the teachers she interviewed as well as tips and suggestions regarding how to better interact with students, parents, and colleagues. Some of the stories contain harsh language and very personal details about the lives of the teachers, but these narratives help illustrate her point that teachers deserve far more respect—and compensation—than they currently receive.
An important and eye-opening book that all parents, teachers, and educational administrators should read.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781101986752
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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