Welcome to the Book Club for the Copy Room Conversations Community
Welcome to the Book Club for the Copy Room Conversations CommunityJust before the pandemic I read a the blog where the author made the case that, at their best, book clubs are “like free grad school.” And, because the universe keeps tabs, his recommendation was a book I announced many months ago as something I wanted our community to read together.
Life is short and our system needs nothing short of an overhaul if we are really going to serve all our kids, so we might as well roll up our sleeves and start digging with all appropriate urgency. These are our kids, after all and, as we know well, there is no such thing as other people’s children.
I invite you to read this semester’s book. I invite you to post about it in our Facebook group. I invite you to our podcast to listen to an interview with author (I say as I put out into that universe that keeps tabs in hopes it will bring our community this favor!). I invite you into community, into learning, and into better serving our kids.
A book club is not enough, but it is an on-ramp to the work. Join us as we get on the road.
Thank you for being here.
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Spring 2022 Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us bySeth Godin
We are teaching through an unprecedented time with unprecedented challenges. We can’t do everything; we can’t even do half the things. What we can do, however, is use our two hands for two truths: this is likely the hardest year of teaching ever AND we remain the leader of our classrooms. How can we hold both? How can we use our position to make this a time of not only learning but thriving for ourselves, each other, and our kids? How can we cultivate and nurture our communities so that we remember that we belong to one another?
Coming to CRC Book Club Fall of 2022 All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks
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Previous Book Club Selections
Fall 2020
Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit
“This seminal text develops ideas about ways teachers can be better ‘cultural transmitters’ in the classroom, a place where prejudice, stereotypes, and cultural assumptions breed ineffective education. Delpit suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication, as primarily white teachers and ‘other people’s children’ struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics plaguing our system.”
They are all our kids. Because there’s no such thing as “other people’s children.” That said, we also have take a step back from our knowing that they are all our kids and recognize all kids are also not us. They are full humans made up of intersecting identities that include ways of being and doing and valuing that are sometimes the same and sometimes different. Lisa Delpit named that in this seminal work, and then she began to talk about how to teach with that in mind. Everything I do as an educator comes back to Delpit’s notion that they are ours, and they are often different, so I wanted to go back to basics and reground myself and our community in our roots. When we remember where we came from, we remember why we do what we do.
Spring 2020
We Want to do more than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina Love.
Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists.
