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rebeccafriedman's review
5.0
Tiffany Jewel never misses. Loved the multiple perspectives. This book was powerful. It challenged me, it made me check myself, it shifted my perspective. Wonderful!
molliesafran's review
informative
3.5
I felt confused about the writing. A lot of the sentence structure and descriptive word choices are simple. I thought this was because it is for a juvenile audience, but then words like disproportionate will be used without definition. I think I’ve realized that the author was going for a conversational tone, which isn’t my preference in memoir. The structure of the book is also confusing. It is more a series of essays than anything else, and it progresses through the author’s experiences in school, kinda? For example, there is a chapter which starts with a story of her and her classmates being searched for weapons in high school which then turns into an info dump about student’s privacy rights. The next chapter then drops the notion of personal story and starts off by describing Tinker v Des Moines and then just lists like 30 things students have rights to. I understand both chapters are related in that they are both about student rights, but it’s a good example of how clunky and preachy a lot of the writing comes off.
I appreciated the depth of research woven in with the memoir, but I feel like traditional nonfiction is a bigger strength for Jewell than memoir-writing.
I’m not aware of another nonfiction book written for a Young Adult audience specifically about systematic racism in schools, so I appreciate that this book fills that gap.
I appreciated the depth of research woven in with the memoir, but I feel like traditional nonfiction is a bigger strength for Jewell than memoir-writing.
I’m not aware of another nonfiction book written for a Young Adult audience specifically about systematic racism in schools, so I appreciate that this book fills that gap.
clhorstmann's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
4.5
Sometimes books like this can be dense and slow-moving. Not this one! Tiffany Jewell does an amazing job of using storytelling to highlight the systemic issues our schools present for students of the Global Majority. Although the focus of the book is what Jewell learned about racism through her schooling, she expertly chose others with a variety of experiences and gives them a platform for sharing how schools shaped them.
I really enjoyed the format of this book and the short vignettes made me want to keep reading. As a cis-gendered, white woman, I felt that Jewell’s story was told in a way that led to personal reflection and thinking critically about my own practice. I highly recommend that all teachers and school leaders read this book!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me an advanced copy of this title!
I really enjoyed the format of this book and the short vignettes made me want to keep reading. As a cis-gendered, white woman, I felt that Jewell’s story was told in a way that led to personal reflection and thinking critically about my own practice. I highly recommend that all teachers and school leaders read this book!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me an advanced copy of this title!
skrajewski's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
After reading books like The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, We Want to Do More Than Survive, Caste, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, and Pushout: the Criminalization of Black Girls in School, which discuss the facts and the history of American schools, this book is something a bit different. Author Tiffany Jewell mainly focuses on the personal stories (though Jewell does weave the facts and history into some of her sections). Many authors of the global majority come together to share their school experiences, and it’s not pretty. I was upset while reading this book. The experiences of what education was like for Jewell and others were often demeaning and just wrong. Kids were knocked down instead of lifted up. No child should be made to feel worse about themselves while (supposedly) getting an education. All children, no matter their race, should be learning about more than just white, male, Eurocentric history. Read their stories about what they went through. Compare their experiences to your own. You’ll see the problem is not just with certain individuals, but the whole American school system, which needs a complete overhaul.
As Jewell says, “the culture of White domination is inescapable…and when we let it be our normal, it divides us from other people and communities” (153-154). When we are taught histories, we learn about topics like enslavement, not the stories of the people who were enslaved and what they actually went through. This harms us all, White people included, and when we know how it harms us, we can actively resist. This book shares the stories missing from our textbooks. Readers may feel uncomfortable by some of them, but “upholding the belief that only some have a right to comfort, that people in power have the right to emotional, physical, and psychological comfort while others do not, is another characteristic of the culture of White dominance” (157). This is how many children of the global majority feel in classrooms, and they are often silenced when issues are raised that veer from the traditional.
I read an ARC of this book, but I’ve already pre-ordered a physical copy. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and it’s one I’ll go back to as I think about, and revise, my teaching philosophy and methods. It’s a necessary read for everyone.
As Jewell says, “the culture of White domination is inescapable…and when we let it be our normal, it divides us from other people and communities” (153-154). When we are taught histories, we learn about topics like enslavement, not the stories of the people who were enslaved and what they actually went through. This harms us all, White people included, and when we know how it harms us, we can actively resist. This book shares the stories missing from our textbooks. Readers may feel uncomfortable by some of them, but “upholding the belief that only some have a right to comfort, that people in power have the right to emotional, physical, and psychological comfort while others do not, is another characteristic of the culture of White dominance” (157). This is how many children of the global majority feel in classrooms, and they are often silenced when issues are raised that veer from the traditional.
I read an ARC of this book, but I’ve already pre-ordered a physical copy. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and it’s one I’ll go back to as I think about, and revise, my teaching philosophy and methods. It’s a necessary read for everyone.
nqcliteracy's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This is an important book for all caregivers and educators to read, think about, and use- as a blueprint for their own unlearning and questioning for how they move forward with young people.
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