Our School and How I Just Want To Hear What Happened
Our School by Sam Chaltain
This is a quick blog recommending that you read Our School by Sam Chaltain. I’m in the throes of reading three edu-books in a row while promoting mine. What Chaltain provides in buckets is a first-hand account of what’s happening in two different, but clearly interesting schools in Washington, DC.
In case you’re wondering, this isn’t a book review.
For most of my educational career, I’ve mostly read books that already come with a slant, some more bent than others. There’s a sense that it doesn’t matter what actually happened and, instead, that the author’s point of view already overlays any partially telling of the events. That’s well and good because … this is what we do now. But, for a while, I’ve often wanted to know what things were happening in other schools besides what the numbers and figures tell us. I wanted to get a feel for how two different schools are handling the changing landscape of one of education reform’s playgrounds.
This book has elements for that. It took a while to pick up the action, but after reading it, I felt empathy towards many of the situations in the book, and I’d recommend folks read for those moments. I read so many opinions on education that, at times, it’s just nice getting a few pages of what’s actually happening in these schools.
This book takes us through the struggles of a public school with a passionate leader trying to grapple with the mandates of DCPS leadership and a school staff that seems at once passionate yet inflexible. The second school is a brand new bilingual charter Our School and How I Just Want To Hear What Happened - The Jose Vilson: