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1-Page Summary of Letters to a Young Teacher
Overall Summary
Jonathan Kozol, a veteran educator, offers advice to teachers in his book Letters to a Young Teacher. He gives Francesca (an imaginary teacher) tips on how she can be successful as an elementary school teacher. He also writes about the struggles that teachers face and what they should do when they encounter them.
Kozol starts by saying that schools have become a political football. People who don’t understand education are trying to run public schools like businesses. Kozol thinks teachers should be seen as “ministers of innocence” and guides for students during their growth process, rather than technicians of proficiency. He says the most important thing is for teachers to enjoy teaching and love their students, because if they do that, they’ll last longer in this challenging work.
Kozol said that rapport can be established with students. It is crucial for successful learning, and it takes patience to establish a relationship. Teachers must take the time necessary to build trust before they teach content. The chapter emphasizes that mutual respect must happen before class material is introduced.
Kozol says that teachers need the trust of their students and parents to be effective. Teachers should reach out to parents who seem uncooperative and try to get to know them better. Sometimes, though, poor treatment in the past keeps parents from trusting a teacher or school system.
It’s important to seek out mentors and advice from veteran teachers, even if they seem behind the times. If you communicate with them, you’ll find that they have a lot of experience to share. One of Kozol’s key qualities is flexibility—working with what one has in the moment and going off on tangents when students bring up ideas that don’t necessarily relate to the lesson but are interesting nonetheless. Being open to students’ thoughts broadens one’s enjoyment of teaching.
Kozol addresses the issue of difficult students. He believes that these students have a backstory, and it is better to address this with patience than to label them as having ADHD or behavioral issues. When they are labeled, they find it hard to shed those labels because they feel like there’s no way out of their situation. The end result is more acting out and less learning for these students.
Kozol defines what true diversity education means. He thinks that it needs to go beyond the issues of the 1950s and 60s, and instead focus on how students can relate their own lives to diversity in today’s society. At the same time, he worries that too many schools are focusing on this issue without actually having diverse student bodies.
Kozol criticizes the way “meta-cognition” and “meta-strategy” are used in schools. Students should learn content, not educational philosophy.
Kozol believes that students are more likely to be at school and learn if they’re having fun. He thinks that teachers should incorporate humor into their lessons, even though these techniques are being attacked in today’s educational environment.
It is not surprising that Kozol is against the testing model in place today. The system favors wealthy schools and discourages teachers from teaching, which decreases student motivation to learn.
In his book, Kozol describes the problems of public schools for disadvantaged students. He says that private school vouchers would help wealthy families but that poor families could not attend those private schools because they can’t afford them. Public school vouchers mean more business arrangements between businesses and schools rather than democratizing education. So, it’s important to protect and defend public schools in order to teach children how things really work in politics, law, economics etc. In middle and high schools there are too many students per teacher so teaching becomes less effective. But even if there were enough teachers or classrooms for every student who wants one, learning should still be aimed at helping kids truly learn because we do not care about packing each child with equal knowledge since some can reach higher levels than others without feeling ashamed or like they’ve “lost” something along the way – this is what distinguishes us from animals: we understand when someone knows more about a topic; other species feel threatened instead when facing someone superior on any content – especially food/hunting-related topics (dogs vs cats 😉 ). Therefore competition should exist only within each individual student himself as he progresses through life, rather than between very different individuals competing against one another just because their parents earned money/used social network contacts differently – i.e., due to pure luck in birth (which helps explain why people born into better positions get faster promotions starting at lower ranks; once promoted though all these hierarchies followed by vertical chains eventually meld into horizontal ones where everyone competes depending on skills and choices regardless of wealth inherited).
