Letters to a Young Teacher

By: Jonathan Kozol

Narrated by: David Drummond

In these affectionate letters to Francesca, a first-grade teacher at an inner-city school in Boston, Jonathan Kozol vividly describes his repeated visits to her classroom while, under Francesca's likably irreverent questioning, also revealing his own most personal stories of the years that he has spent in public schools.

Letters to a Young Teacher reignites a number of the controversial issues that Kozol has powerfully addressed in recent years: the mania of high-stakes testing that turns many classrooms into test-prep factories where spontaneity and critical intelligence are no longer valued, the invasion of our public schools by predatory private corporations, and the inequalities of urban schools that are once again almost as segregated as they were a century ago.

But most of all, these letters are rich with the happiness of teaching children, the curiosity and jubilant excitement children bring into the classroom at an early age, and their ability to overcome their insecurities when they are in the hands of an adoring and hard-working teacher.

©2007 Jonathan Kozol (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"Encouraging...forceful...convincingly argued." ( Publishers Weekly)"Remarkable....Every citizen who cares about the future of our children ought to read this." (Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

A must read for new teachers

This book has a lot of "real" new teacher issues. It is great for any new teacher of an urban classroom. Don't get caught up in the author's soap box.....otherwise it does provide some good suggestions for a new teacher.