The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
Jonathan M. Metzl - 2010
But a very different civil rights history evolved at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia, Michigan. In The Protest Psychosis, psychiatrist and cultural critic Jonathan Metzl tells the shocking story of how schizophrenia became the diagnostic term overwhelmingly applied to African American protesters at Ionia—for political reasons as well as clinical ones. Expertly sifting through a vast array of cultural documents, Metzl shows how associations between schizophrenia and blackness emerged during the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s—and he provides a cautionary tale of how anxieties about race continue to impact doctor-patient interactions in our seemingly postracial America.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School
Shamus Rahman Khan - 2010
Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, has long been the exclusive domain of America’s wealthiest sons. But times have changed. Today, a new elite of boys and girls is being molded at St. Paul’s, one that reflects the hope of openness but also the persistence of inequality.In Privilege, Shamus Khan returns to his alma mater to provide an inside look at an institution that has been the private realm of the elite for the past 150 years. He shows that St. Paul’s students continue to learn what they always have — how to embody privilege. Yet, while students once leveraged the trappings of upper-class entitlement, family connections, and high culture, current St. Paul’s students learn to succeed in a more diverse environment. To be the future leaders of a more democratic world, they must be at ease with everything from highbrow art to everyday life — from Beowulf to Jaws — and view hierarchies as ladders to scale. Through deft portrayals of the relationships among students, faculty, and staff, Khan shows how members of the new elite face the opening of society while still preserving the advantages that allow them to rule.
Keepin' It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White
Prudence L. Carter - 2005
In Keepin' It Real: School Success beyond Black and White, Prudence Carter turns the conventional wisdom on its head arguing that what is needed is a broader recognition of the unique cultural styles and practices that non-white students bring to the classroom. Based on extensive interviews and surveys of students in New York, she demonstrates that the most successful negotiators of our school systems are the multicultural navigators, culturally savvy teens who draw from multiple traditions, whether it be knowledge of hip hop or of classical music, to achieve their high ambitions. Keepin' it Real refutes the common wisdom about teenage behavior and racial difference, and shows how intercultural communication, rather than assimilation, can help close the black-white gap.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Steven D. Levitt - 2005
Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.(front flap)
Con Respeto: Bridging the Distances Between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools: An Ethnographic Portrait
Guadalupe Valdés - 1996
Guadalupe Vald�s examines what appears to be a lack of interest in education by Mexican parents and shows, through extensive quotations and numerous anecdotes, that these families are both rich and strong in family values, and that they bring with them clear views of what constitutes success and failure. The book's conclusion questions the merit of typical family intervention programs designed to promote school success and suggests that these interventions--because they do not genuinely respect the values of diverse families--may have long-term negative consequences for children.Con Respeto will be a valuable resource in graduate courses in foundations, ethnographic research, sociology and anthropology of education, multicultural education, and child development; and will be of particular interest to professors and researchers of multicultural education, bilingual education, ethnographic research methods, and sociology and anthropology of education.
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision
Barbara Ransby - 2003
A gifted grassroots organizer, Baker shunned the spotlight in favor of vital behind-the-scenes work that helped power the black freedom struggle. She was a national officer and key figure in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a prime mover in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Baker made a place for herself in predominantly male political circles that included W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King Jr., all the while maintaining relationships with a vibrant group of women, students, and activists both black and white.In this deeply researched biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on group-centered, grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries. Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, the book paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide across the twentieth century.
Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
Mamie Till-Mobley - 2003
Each has a unique story, a path that led to a role as leader or activist. Death of Innocence is the heartbreaking and ultimately inspiring story of one such hero: Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till—an innocent fourteen-year-old African-American boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who paid for it with his life. His outraged mother’s actions galvanized the civil rights movement, leaving an indelible mark on American racial consciousness. Mamie Carthan was an ordinary African-American woman growing up in 1930s Chicago, living under the strong, steady influence of her mother’s care. She fell in love with and married Louis Till, and while the marriage didn’t last, they did have a beautiful baby boy, Emmett. In August 1955, Emmett was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two white men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a white woman in a convenience store. His mother began her career of activism when she insisted on an open-casket viewing of her son’s gruesomely disfigured body. More than a hundred thousand people attended the service. The trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, accused of kidnapping and murdering Emmett (the two were eventually acquitted of the crime), was considered the first full-scale media event of the civil rights movement. What followed altered the course of this country’s history, and it was all set in motion by the sheer will, determination, and courage of Mamie Till-Mobley—a woman who would pull herself back from the brink of suicide to become a teacher and inspire hundreds of black children throughout the country.Mamie Till-Mobley, who died in 2003 just as she completed this memoir, has honored us with her full testimony: “I focused on my son while I considered this book. . . . The result is in your hands. . . . I am experienced, but not cynical. . . . I am hopeful that we all can be better than we are. I’ve been brokenhearted, but I still maintain an oversized capacity for love.” Death of Innocence is an essential document in the annals of American civil rights history, and a painful yet beautiful account of a mother’s ability to transform tragedy into boundless courage and hope.From the Hardcover edition.
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Safiya Umoja Noble - 2018
But, if you type in "white girls," the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about "why black women are so sassy" or "why black women are so angry" presents a disturbing portrait of black womanhood in modern society.In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance - operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond - understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.
Hidden Gems: Naming and Teaching from the Brilliance in Every Student's Writing
Katherine Bomer - 2010
-Lucy Calkins, Author of Units of Study for Teaching WritingHidden Gems will transform the way we read student work. -Thomas Newkirk, Author of Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad OnesYou don't get true, fire-in-the-belly energy for writing because you fear getting a bad grade, but because you have something to say and your own way of saying it. -Katherine BomerIf you're like Katherine Bomer, you've grown weary of searching for what's wrong in student writing, and you want better ways to the respond to pieces whose beauty and intelligence doesn't shine on the first read. Now she shares how she learned instead to search-sometimes near the surface, sometimes deep beneath-to find, celebrate, and teach from writers' Hidden Gems.My hope is that as teachers we can respond to all students' writing with astonished, appreciative, awe-struck eyes, writes Katherine. Through protocols, sample assessments, and demonstrations with actual student work, she shows how to bring the brilliant facets of your writers to the surface as you:spot hidden stylistic gems in writing that is unconventional or vernacular uncover content and organizational gems even when you don't find the subject matter engaging or significant respond by naming and celebrating writers' gems instead of hunting for mistakes give lasting compliments using the inspiring language of published writers that motivate students to keep writing, revising, and polishing their gems. Accept Katherine Bomer's invitation to read work by young, unseasoned writers the way we would inquire our way into a poem by Nikki Giovanni, Jimmy Santiago Baca, or Naomi Shihab Nye and to notice the quirky brilliance and humor, the heartbreaking honesty, and surreal beauty in even the slightest bits of writing. You'll soon discover that student writers often perform remarkable feats in the craft of writing, and that you can achieve remarkable results with them when you uncover theirHidden Gems.
Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century : An Introduction
Kay Ann Cassell - 2006
The only reference text to identify the top resources in major subject areas and genres, it shows students how to approach the reference query by matching specific types of questions to the most appropriate format (when answering questions that require handy facts, for example, go first to ready reference sources; for questions about current events and issues, start with indexes). The book begins with the essentials -- interviewing patrons, determining the information need, and developing a basic search strategy. It then gives a thorough overview of the materials, print and electronic, most frequently used to answer questions -- from government information to bibliographic resources, dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical information sources, atlases, and more. A section on special topics in reference includes chapters on when and how to use the Internet as a reference tool, suggestions on user instruction at the reference desk, and reader's advisory work, as well as a chapter on service to children and youth authored by acclaimed expert Mary K. Chelton. Finally, the book addresses reference management basics: selection and evaluation of material, management of the reference department, assessing and improving reference services, and future trends. Guided by an advisory board and a focus group, the authors have achieved an ideal balance between practical elements and guiding principles. This landmark text is sure to be of interest to LIS educators, students, and both novice and experienced reference professionals.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Scott McCloud - 1993
Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.
The Reading Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Readers
Jennifer Serravallo - 2015
Learn more. With hit books that support strategic reading through conferring, small groups, and assessment, Jen Serravallo gets emails almost daily asking, Isn't there a book of the strategies themselves? Now there is.Strategies make the often invisible work of reading actionable and visible, Jen writes. In The Reading Strategies Book, she collects 300 strategies to share with readers in support of thirteen goals-everything from fluency to literary analysis. Each strategy is cross-linked to skills, genres, and Fountas & Pinnell reading levels to give you just-right teaching, just in time. With Jen's help you'll:develop goals for every reader give students step-by-step strategies for skilled reading guide readers with prompts aligned to the strategies adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen's Teaching Tips craft demonstrations and explanations with her Lesson Language learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher-authors. Whether you use readers workshop, Daily 5/CAFE, guided reading, balanced reading, a core reading program, whole-class novels, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book will complement and extend your teaching. Rely on it to plan and implement goal-directed, differentiated instruction for individuals, small groups, and whole classes.We offer strategies to readers to put the work in doable terms for those who are still practicing, writes Jen Serravallo. The goal is not that they can do the steps of the strategy but that they become more comfortable and competent with a new skill. With The Reading Strategies Book, you'll have ways to help your readers make progress every day.
The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--And How to Fix It
Natalie Wexler - 2019
The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension skills at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware.But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.
Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race
Thomas Chatterton Williams - 2019
Thomas Chatterton Williams, the son of a “black” father from the segregated South and a “white” mother from the West, spent his whole life believing the dictum that a single drop of “black blood” makes a person black. This was so fundamental to his self-conception that he’d never rigorously reflected on its foundations—but the shock of his experience as the black father of two extremely white-looking children led him to question these long-held convictions.“It is not that I have come to believe that I am no longer black or that my daughter is white,” Williams writes. “It is that these categories cannot adequately capture either of us.” Beautifully written and bound to upset received opinions on race, Self-Portrait in Black and White is an urgent work for our time.