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65 reviews for:
Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter's School
Courtney E. Martin
4.3 AVERAGE
65 reviews for:
Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter's School
Courtney E. Martin
4.3 AVERAGE
I found her pacing and the creative chapters repeating one mantra alone, very creative. What I'd love to see is a second book with chapters rotating of the Afro-American father's views from the same school and neighborhood whose family has been there for 3-4 generations. That would really enhance what the reviewer in The Atlantic criticized Courtney for a bit (Unfairly I thought, as after all, we can only know our own experience). I thought Courtney taking on such a fraught subject was brave and needed, albeit stopping short at times. The awkwardness and closeness of she as the minority in this context was aptly described, and the new criteria of what made a "good" school was so important to highlight. I thought she a good writer and the flow was an easy one. Helpful and worthwhile, with reservations obvious.
I have so many thoughts on this one and cannot review it well yet, having just finished. I have a bunch of criticisms, too, so while I think very highly of it, I’m not without cringe-like responses to some of her writing and charges to readers.
Specifically, it was uncomfortable to read her critiques of other white women without modeling the teamwork and partnership with them to do the work. I’m not saying that’s always required, but white people seem best positioned to take on other white people in these communities who we see acting in harmful ways. Martin instead chose to vilify and distance from one specific white woman in this text. It’s easy to do. As a reader, I would have benefitted from her discussion of working with people like this, but I’ll have to get that elsewhere.
I will give it five stars because of the intensity of deep reflection, personal research, and purposeful action it inspired in my own life. Curiosity led me to begin seeking answers about my child’s school, the community we chose to inhabit, and the ways we live our values as a young family—just as Martin writes about with her own. It was an important read for me (in the fall of my daughter’s kindergarten year), and I so appreciate being tasked to review the choices I make that lead to better education in our country.
Finally, the “show up, shush up, stay put” advice for white folks in nonwhite dominate spaces was so useful and well illustrated.
Specifically, it was uncomfortable to read her critiques of other white women without modeling the teamwork and partnership with them to do the work. I’m not saying that’s always required, but white people seem best positioned to take on other white people in these communities who we see acting in harmful ways. Martin instead chose to vilify and distance from one specific white woman in this text. It’s easy to do. As a reader, I would have benefitted from her discussion of working with people like this, but I’ll have to get that elsewhere.
I will give it five stars because of the intensity of deep reflection, personal research, and purposeful action it inspired in my own life. Curiosity led me to begin seeking answers about my child’s school, the community we chose to inhabit, and the ways we live our values as a young family—just as Martin writes about with her own. It was an important read for me (in the fall of my daughter’s kindergarten year), and I so appreciate being tasked to review the choices I make that lead to better education in our country.
Finally, the “show up, shush up, stay put” advice for white folks in nonwhite dominate spaces was so useful and well illustrated.
I listened to this on audio. It held my interest in most parts and made a lot of valid points. The subject of being a white parent choosing to educate my children in a non-white majority urban school certainly resonated with me. I don't know that I learned all that much from this book though. It read more like an article or podcast, and I'm not sure it was researching or stretching enough for its length. I would be curious to hear from parents in different cities and with older children. I do think the biggest lesson as a white parent entering these schools is to do your best to shut up and listen.
As a White teacher in a multiracial public school, I want to give this book to every white parent & teacher I know. So much to learn. So much to unlearn.
I have a lot of feelings about this book because I am also a white mom in a gentrifying school. I think lots was left out of this story but it is Courtney's story to tell. There is so much ugliness and misinformation around the topic of integration and segregation in schools. Courtney did a good job providing an introspective white mom's perspective.
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Learning in Public (2021), Courtney E. Martin
Learning in Public is both a memoir and socio-historical investigation into continued racial (and economic) segregation in US schools. Martin documents her decision to enroll her four-year-old daughter in their zoned public school in a gentrifying neighborhood of Oakland, despite the school's "failing" rating. Along the way, she discovers how educated, middle-to-upper-class white parents manipulate systems to get their kids into the "right" schools, and interrogates the arguments that liberal-identifying parents use to absolve themselves of perpetuating such school segregation.
While Martin's primary audience are white people (especially liberal white women), her journey also speaks to people of color who hold economic privilege, and a degree of internalized whiteness. Though I don't have children, I am fascinated by the structures of both education and narrative and how these are used as tools to perpetuate or disrupt inequity. While Martin's narrative is structured very reflexively, it also encourages readers to reflect on their own choices or potential future choices, and how they function within systems of power, privilege, and oppression.
Excellent read, especially for parents or anyone interested in education. The author does a great job showing that there's so much more to a school than its score on greatschools.org.
Sometimes the worst books are the best ones to discuss. This wasn’t the worst book I’ve read, but it’s one that I’d love to discuss because I have some thoughts.
Wayyyyy too many chapters. 123 to be exact. Was it cool that she was in a yoga class with Angela Davis? Sure, but it didn’t need to be mentioned. I didn’t need to hear so much about the pushback regarding the merging of two schools, neither of which her kid attended. I also didn’t need the story about the grandparent having a medical incident on the playground. This book could have done with some serious editing.
I listened to the audiobook. While I appreciated that she had a Black woman act as her sensitivity reader, it was hard to understand when problematic statements were pointed out since the author read those herself. It was also hard to understand if the author learned anything from the feedback.
There were soooo many examples of white saviorism, and the author self-reflected on a few but that didn’t slow her down from continually treating one Black dad like a charity chase instead of like a peer and fellow parent. She also had a weird relationship with one of her daughter’s teachers. It felt like she hounded her even after the teacher left the school. Then the set up of Blair being her polar opposite as a pushy vvhite mom to the author’s supposedly cool vvhite mom…ick.
The parts I liked were the parts where I learned that school integration peaked in the 80s and school is now more segregated than it was in the 60s. I also liked when she shared stories about how her daughter was making friends and learning at the school and when she said vvhite parents are welcome to send their kids to majority Black schools, but that the parents need to sit down, shut up and listen. Great advice that the author could have heeded more. There’s also a great chapter where she references an article written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, but when I looked up the article later, I realized most of what the author read was exactly what Hannah-Jones had written in the article. Since I listened to the audiobook, I’m not sure what was direct quote and what was paraphrased, but it felt like all she did was regurgitate a Black woman’s words.
Overall, I like the idea of the book, and while parts of her journey were super cringy, I definitely identified at times. Maybe that’s part of why I struggle with it. It definitely made me continue thinking about school choice, a topic that’s been on my mind for a few years now even though my kids aren’t school age yet. I know the benefits of immersing my kids in classrooms with kids from different races, different socio economic backgrounds, different abilities and where English is not the first language spoken at home. Having grown up in PWI, I have a better understanding now of what I missed then. I love that I found a school system whose demographics include 30% white, 32% Black, 14% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 22% ESL and 72% low income. It’s sad that so many of the surrounding, sought after school systems are anywhere from 75 to 88% white.
Wayyyyy too many chapters. 123 to be exact. Was it cool that she was in a yoga class with Angela Davis? Sure, but it didn’t need to be mentioned. I didn’t need to hear so much about the pushback regarding the merging of two schools, neither of which her kid attended. I also didn’t need the story about the grandparent having a medical incident on the playground. This book could have done with some serious editing.
I listened to the audiobook. While I appreciated that she had a Black woman act as her sensitivity reader, it was hard to understand when problematic statements were pointed out since the author read those herself. It was also hard to understand if the author learned anything from the feedback.
There were soooo many examples of white saviorism, and the author self-reflected on a few but that didn’t slow her down from continually treating one Black dad like a charity chase instead of like a peer and fellow parent. She also had a weird relationship with one of her daughter’s teachers. It felt like she hounded her even after the teacher left the school. Then the set up of Blair being her polar opposite as a pushy vvhite mom to the author’s supposedly cool vvhite mom…ick.
The parts I liked were the parts where I learned that school integration peaked in the 80s and school is now more segregated than it was in the 60s. I also liked when she shared stories about how her daughter was making friends and learning at the school and when she said vvhite parents are welcome to send their kids to majority Black schools, but that the parents need to sit down, shut up and listen. Great advice that the author could have heeded more. There’s also a great chapter where she references an article written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, but when I looked up the article later, I realized most of what the author read was exactly what Hannah-Jones had written in the article. Since I listened to the audiobook, I’m not sure what was direct quote and what was paraphrased, but it felt like all she did was regurgitate a Black woman’s words.
Overall, I like the idea of the book, and while parts of her journey were super cringy, I definitely identified at times. Maybe that’s part of why I struggle with it. It definitely made me continue thinking about school choice, a topic that’s been on my mind for a few years now even though my kids aren’t school age yet. I know the benefits of immersing my kids in classrooms with kids from different races, different socio economic backgrounds, different abilities and where English is not the first language spoken at home. Having grown up in PWI, I have a better understanding now of what I missed then. I love that I found a school system whose demographics include 30% white, 32% Black, 14% Hispanic, 14% Asian, 22% ESL and 72% low income. It’s sad that so many of the surrounding, sought after school systems are anywhere from 75 to 88% white.
I really liked this. Yes, the author was super introspective, occasionally cringy, definitely had some "white savior" vibes at times. But it is precisely her willingness to be honest and vulnerable (even showing a black woman's critique in places) that makes this valuable. There are a lot of white people out here who need to see this--her decisionmaking, her agonizing, how it went OK, but how she can still see the weaknesses in her chosen school. Her wanting so much to make things better, her occasionally coming on too strong, her eventual choice to focus on listening and stepping back. Her willingness to show she doesn't have it all figured out yet. No one ever told us white people aspiring to antiracism that it was going to be easy, that good intentions would promise us no missteps. Learning to listen, being willing to be vulnerable, being open to correction--these are precisely the things we NEED. This book is an exercise in just that, for all of us to learn from.