On Being a Teacher [Hardcover]

Jonathan Kozol (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1981

Jonathan Kozol, National Book Award-winning author and one of America's foremost writers on social issues, offers a passionate and provocative critique on the role of the teacher in America's public school system. Drawn in part from his own experienced, Kozol offers the practical strategies every reader can use for eradicating prejudices, developing young people's potential, and helping them to become warriors of social change.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Must reading for all teachers and parents" --Studs Terkel --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jonathan Kozol is award-winning author of Death at an Early Age, Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, and The Shame of the Nation. He has held two Guggenheim Fellowships, has twice been a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, and has also received fellowships from the Field and Ford Foundations. He has been working with children in inner-city schools for more than 40 years. He currently lives in Byfield, MA. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 177 pages
• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group (April 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826400353
• ISBN-13: 978-0826400352
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #705,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Kozol has been awarded the National Book Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. His book Savage Inequalities was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and became a national bestseller.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars education as citizenship, March 8, 2000

By 

Julie Bolt (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Being a Teacher (Paperback)

I have my community college students read Kozol's essays and they always have a strong response leading to debate about thier own education and belief systems. The essays are highly accessible to general readers and blow the pants off the denser works of the most acclaimed education theorists. Like all Kozol's work, On Being a Teacher book is passionate, pointed and beautifully written. (Before emerging as a 60s activist, Kozol was a poet.) He asks us what teaching and schools are for: mantaining an inequitable status quo or achieving a vibrant democracy that all students (and teachers)feel they can enter into? You would be well served to read it and see what you think! Each short essay addresses a theme having to do with the ethical and social responsibilities of the teacher. Topics include "History from the bottom up," "The Hero in jail: the truth will set us free," and "It is evil to tell lies to children." Although this book is almost 20 years old, every essay still resonates and asks contmeperary questons. Savor this book if you have a bit of the revolutionary in you, or if you are feeling like you're on auto-pilot and need some revolutionary sprit infused into your veins. Even politically conservative readers like the one above will find they have an challenging and engaging dialog with this book. As for educators and parents, On Being a Teacher is a must. There is only one philosphical book about education that is more stunning, a book called The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home, also by Kozol. Sadly, that book is out of print. Hopefully that will change. In the meantime, On Being a Teacher continues to resound.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars in response to "a reader", October 8, 2005

By 

Lawrencerose - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Being a Teacher (Paperback)

I just want to respond to the review by "a reader." Jonathan Kozol was in fact an educator, and if you're read any of his other works, such as "Death at an Early Age," he gives us personal accounts from his own teaching. He is an amazing writer, and very powerful in the field of education. If you do not agree with his "conspiracy theories" that is fine, but please do not make it seem as if he is not qualified to write about what he does.

11 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars On Being a Trouble Maker, July 25, 2009

By 

David (Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Being a Teacher (Paperback)

I was very disappointed with this book. "On Being a Teacher" seemed to be a sorry attempt at flexing the author's perceived intellectual muscle. This book had less to do with strategies for being an effective teacher, and more to do with boiling blood wherever blood flows. Kozol is great at pointing out extremist problems with the American school system, but lacks any practical solutions. I would highly recommend this book to the type of teacher that leaves the classroom each day to go home and loathe in self-hate, and quotes 1984 as their lifes guiding doctrine. There are more effective ways of guiding students to be change-making members of society than through the politics of fear and spending a day telling your students that conspiring corporations create teachers' guidebooks to guide the teacher in prescribed lessons, which are secretely designed to structure curriculum as institutionalized brainwashing. Most effective teachers I know don't need an author with 4 years experience inside an actual classroom to tell them that the textbook companies write textbooks with their own ideas in them. These teachers, contrary to Kozol's expectations of educators, have the ability to critically evaluate situations and materials and formulate their own teaching methods.