Readers sometimes ask for advice about books to read over the summer. Here are four books that I think offer a mixture of encouragement, inspiration, passion, perspective, challenge and controversy.
For people seeking inspiration and insight into the challenges and rewards of teaching, I’d suggest two books. The first is “Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach.” The second is “Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach.” Both were edited by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner.
Joe Nathan
Each book contains dozens of poems and one-page essays by educators explaining how the poem touches them. Contributors include district and charter educators, union leaders and college faculty. These are great books to read for 10 minutes or several hours.
The third book is “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson. It contains extraordinary stories of 6 million African-Americans who moved from the American South to the North between 1919 and 1970. Wilkerson’s parents were part of this movement.
Award-winning, controversial and challenging educator Howard Fuller is one of many millions who moved north. I strongly recommend his book, co-authored with Lisa Frazier Page, “No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life from Black Power to Education Reform.”
Fuller has been beaten by police and jailed for his civil rights efforts, which span more than 50 years. His book’s title comes from a speech by civil rights activist Frederick Douglass.
Fuller has become one of the country’s most eloquent, passionate promoters of chartered public schools and vouchers for students from low-income families. I agree with him on the charter idea and disagree about vouchers. But I think that regardless of a person’s position on these issues, Fuller’s insights, involvement and ideas are very much worth considering.
I know of no more provocative, passionate and powerful book for people who care about students from low-income families and the schools serving them.
Each of these books offers insights and inspiration that stay with you long after this summer.
– Joe Nathan, formerly a Minnesota public school teacher, administrator and PTA president, directs the Center for School Change.