A Teacher’s Tale recalls urban school troubles and offers ideas for reform
Dr. John Thompson is known for sharing countless stories from his teaching days at John Marshall High School in blog posts and newspaper columns.
The retired educator doesn’t write the stories to reminisce or complain about inner-city school teaching.
Instead, Thompson writes to illustrate implementation of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act and how that accountability system — based on data — overlooked educational difficulties caused by poverty.
His firsthand accounts from 18 years spent in the Oklahoma City Public Schools district are now presented in a 464-page book appealing to those in education and those not. Thompson describes it as a teacher memoir mixed with “a case study of teaching in the inner city during an age of reform.” Tate Publishing will release A Teacher’s Tale: Learning, Loving and Listening to Our Kids on Tuesday. In it, Thompson advocates for more student connections, a team approach to student learning and less federal policies implemented into urban school districts.
“It is the story of how a run-of-the-mill inner-city school, John Marshall, had problems but had a lot of great strengths,” said Thompson in an Oklahoma Gazette interview. “The school was ripped apart by school reform. We still don’t know how to turn around schools that have that intense concentrations of poverty.”
Atypical educator
The award-winning historian entered the education field after witnessing an influx of drugs moving into his neighborhood after the devastating oil bust of the 1980s in Oklahoma. When Thompson passed crack houses during walks with his dog, children would run to him to pet the dog and then engage in a friendly conversation.
Thompson got attached to the children, who he mentored. Despite witnessing the struggles of OKCPS, A Teacher’s Tale recalls urban school troubles and offers ideas for reform | Oklahoma Gazette - Linkis.com: