Book Report: There are No Children Here

I just completed another book from the recommended reading list, There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz. It is a story of two young brothers growing up in housing projects in Chicago in the late 1980's. It gives the reader a look at poverty and the many things that come with it- gangs, drugs, violence, death, teen-pregnancy, crime, prison, high-rates of school dropouts – and it focuses especially on how it affects the children. This true story takes place from 1987 to 1989, and one thing that stays with me throughout the whole story is the children's young ages - just a few years older than I was at the same time, but living light years away in another world entirely. Here I am, growing up happy and safe in my middle-class suburb, when only a few hundred miles away are children who live in fear of not making it to their next birthdays.

Book Report: “The Learning Gap”

I mentioned the recommended reading list, and today I am going to discuss “The Learning Gap: Why our schools are failing and what we can learn from Japanese and Chinese Education” by Harold Stevenson and James Stigler. The authors have compiled the results of their academic publications on studies of American, Japanese, and Chinese elementary schools into a book for the lay-audience. They left out the more technical aspects of their findings, and instead give more general descriptions and conclusions of their work. They begin by giving evidence that American school children do in fact perform poorly on basic skills tests compared to children in Japan and China – i.e. The Learning Gap. Let's assume we can all agree with this premise and move on to trying to understand what makes education in these countries different, which might explain why Japanese and Chinese children are out-performing American children.

Reading List

The PGCTF staff sent out a list of recommended reading to the fellows in the introductory paperwork we received. I am making it a goal to read as many of the books from the list as possible, and I plan on commenting on the books and any other books I read as I am preparing to become a teacher. For now, I will simply share the list of 16 books, as I am sure it is not a secret meant only for PGCTF members. It seems that the books on this list are not dry, technical textbooks, but are things that would appeal to anyone interested in education and the challenges faced by schools in America. I think teachers, parents, and prospective educators would find them interesting as well.