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A review by aclopez6
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
5.0
At times, this book was tough to read. I taught in charter schools for a few years, and the charter school I started at had disgusting similarities to Urban Promise Prep (the school J.B., Ramon, Trey, and Omar attend). This review is more of a rant than a commentary on the writing or plot.
We had silent lunches at times. As teachers, we followed a system that dictated how students left the classroom. We used an imaginary point system called deductions. We had students walk in a line, inside of a painted line on the floor, silent. In the moment, working in that system, it was tough to push back, but our students deserved different, and many did not thrive in the least. While the school I worked at was not as militant as others, we did not have systems that allowed us to treat students with dignity consistently.
"But everybody (including my mom) thinks Promise is better and so perfect because of the college acceptance rate. Little do people know, Promise finds any reason to expel a kid once they realize the student has zero chance of getting into college. Kids are kicked out and thrown back into their neighborhood school their junior or senior year, with nobody to help them. And if they didn't have a chance at college before, they definitely don't have one once an expulsion goes on their record."
Thank you for sharing this truth, Nick Brooks. I will definitely be reading your future works.
We had silent lunches at times. As teachers, we followed a system that dictated how students left the classroom. We used an imaginary point system called deductions. We had students walk in a line, inside of a painted line on the floor, silent. In the moment, working in that system, it was tough to push back, but our students deserved different, and many did not thrive in the least. While the school I worked at was not as militant as others, we did not have systems that allowed us to treat students with dignity consistently.
"But everybody (including my mom) thinks Promise is better and so perfect because of the college acceptance rate. Little do people know, Promise finds any reason to expel a kid once they realize the student has zero chance of getting into college. Kids are kicked out and thrown back into their neighborhood school their junior or senior year, with nobody to help them. And if they didn't have a chance at college before, they definitely don't have one once an expulsion goes on their record."
Thank you for sharing this truth, Nick Brooks. I will definitely be reading your future works.