Each year Berkeley puts together an optional reading list for incoming students, and this year’s theme is “Education Matters“. Surprisingly, I’ve only read one of the books on the list. Thinking about heading the library to read more. Also wondering, what else would be a good addition to the list? One book I loved this year is Teacher Man, but Frank McCourt. Other recommendations of books about teaching or school?
Have you heard of William Kamkwamba, the boy from Malawi who built a windmill using books from a small library at his school? I’d heard of him but never seen his book. Today I helped my younger sister with a writing critique of it, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and it inspired me to look up his TED talk. WOW. What a courageous, inventive, inspiring person who makes us think about education and inborn talent and what development can be. Thanks, Lethy, I can’t wait to read the book and learn more about him!
Hey reader friends, if you are in for the December reading of Three Cups of Tea, let me know. My book arrived last week and I’m read to read. I created a blog for us on Blogger, so anyone with a google account can be added easily. Depending on peoples’ preferences we can make it users only or have it public. Either way I’ll register all members so we everyone can write posts.
So comment here or email me and let me know whether you’re in. Looking forward to the reading and conversation!
(1) Book Group
It’s a plan, we’ll do a book group, starting with reading Three Cups of Tea in December. I’ll do the job of finding a medium to discuss it, taking all your suggestions. And if we find after December that we peter out, well then it will be a one-book group. But if we find we the virtual, multi-country group works for us, well then we’ll keep it going. Get your hands on a copy of the book (I just ordered mine from Amazon in the UK!) and let me know if you haven’t already that you want to participate. I’ll be in touch about it come December 1st!
(2) Government and Identity?
Anyone else read this article from the this past weekend’s NYT about Jewish schools in the UK? It’s about a lawsuit currently in the Supreme Court there brought by the parents of a boy who was denied admission to a Jewish school because he wasn’t Jewish according to Orthodox laws (his mother converted to Judaism, but in a progressive synagogue). I’m not Jewish, nor am I British, but I found this article very interesting for the questions it raises about culture, government, and education. Who gets to decide the boundaries of a cultural group? Who draws borders around who “we” (as Jews, as Latinos, as Muslims, as Americans) are, and who is included or excluded? What does it mean when the government is making rulings that shape who’s in and who’s out? Should a private religious school be able to exclude someone because they’re not ____ enough (in this case Jewish)?
So there are several of us interested in reading Three Cups of Tea. I was just reading a blog I visit sometimes, of an aid worker (formerly) working in Afghanistan, and she just read it. And then one of her commenters also had written a review about it. And I had an idea: let’s start a book group together! We’ll read Three Cups of Tea first, in December or January, and go from there. I love the idea of a book group focused on nonfiction books like Three Cups of Tea, but am open to other inspirations too. And maybe we could talk about it through emails, or through a discussion group of some kind, or even all get together on the phone or Skype. How many of you have been in a book group before? I’ve always wanted to, but never found (or started) the right group.
What do you think?
I suspect I’ll read it in my advisor’s class on organizational theory in the fall, but regardless, I’m reminded that I need to (re) read the Meyer and Rowan (1977) article on new institutionalism. This article is the most often cited from this theory about how organizations work. I read it in my class with Chiqui Ramirez at Stanford, but need to rescue it from my files and reread it!
This will be a space to take the questions, notes, peoples’ names, etc. that I am scribbling down daily in my notebook and make further meaning of them. A place to explore what I’m interested in, to weigh what is important in my studies, to grapple with questions and develop my thoughts on topics in my field. It will serve as a record of the names and studies I need to read, the scholarship that is fundamental to understanding education policy. A sampling from my notebook:
9/18/06 What topics would serve me well in Spain? Immigration? Evaluation? European integration?
10/9/06 Does business have as much voice in education in other countries?
1/29/07 Think about the relationship between democracy, language and nationalism. Also, we need longitudinal studies of 2nd language development and bilingual education.
2/12/07 Issue of putting all our hopes for fixing society’s ills in schools. Need to read Richard Rothstein!
My idea for the blog is that it will be a place to think more about these things I write down throughout my days at school and work. A place to test out my opinions on topics. I’d like to go back in time through two notebooks and pick out pieces I want to remember and build on, and write on them. It would also be neat to get conversations going with classmates on the topics we’re dealing with in school. And take it beyond school to others who work in education and education policy.
