Customer Reviews

The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle

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I'm Elizabeth Camaraza, one of the rookies who joined the NYC Teaching Fellows and taught with Dan Brown at PS 85 in the Bronx. His beautifully tragic story expertly captures every nuance of a first year teacher's experience in an inner city school. He tells his story with such a profound sense of love, honesty and humor that you will be emotionally wiped-out after reading it. I recommend this book to anyone who cares about kids. Dan Brown is a genius! (PS. I'm in the book!)

After reading Dan Brown's articles and blog entries on The Huffington Post, I had to pick this book up. I wasn't disappointed. While The Huffington Post blog showed me he has a deep understanding and love of teaching and all that it requires, I didn't know that he was funny-- this book changed that. I found myself laughing out loud pretty frequently, which is weird since this is first and foremost a non fiction piece on the trials of being a first year teacher in a NYC public school. But, his voice is so unique that you end up finding humor in the way he views even the simplest of situations.

So the real question is, is this Dan Brown a better writer than Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame? Only time will tell, but the new Dan Brown is off to a fine start.

Okay, we all know that this isn't the same author as the davinci Code. But this is a very, very good book that I read in one day.

Mr. Brown has to teach a class with lots of troubled kids and the stories about the kids and the ups and downs really got me. Especially with Jimmarie and Sonandia (Read the book and youll know what I mean) The end is both satisfying and very thought provoking. I think this should be required reading for teachers and everyone involved in the school system.

At times heart-wrenching and then laugh out loud funny, The Great Expectations School is a sobering look at the current state of public education in America. Brown offers a unique and personalized glimpse into the daily struggle of elementary school with undauntedly heroic teachers, tragic students, and conniving administrators. I recommend this book to anyone who values education and wants to change the system. I also recommend it to those who don't; you will care by the end of the book.

This book opens a window on a world completely unknown to 95% of the country. Dan Brown's tale of teaching in the Bronx will draw in even the hardest of hearts. He writes with an honesty and humility not easily found. As a teacher you will recognize yourself and your students on every page. As a person you can't stop the range of emotions you feel for every child and teacher in the book.

As a second year New York City Teaching Fellow, I can attest that the stories Dan tells in this book are still stories that we as teachers face every day. From the students living in shelters and floating from address to address to the micro-management of such things as bulletin boards, it's all very much the world in which I live. The book is heartbreaking in its realism ~ but it gives me hope to know that I am not alone.

I definitely second the motion that this become required reading for anyone entering aternative certification programs. It's less Pollyanna-ish than "Ms. Moffett's First Year" which, while somewhat realistic, doesn't really get to the heart of the matter, and more realistic than "Educating Esme", which, unless you ARE Esme, really isn't realistic at all. While I wouldn't change my path into teaching, I wish I'd had someone really tell it like it is before I started as Dan has done here.

You gotta sing as you kick them, that's the message of the 20th century. The low expectations of the "Great Expectations School" stand out, but the author persuades us that all is not lost. This author goes a long way toward adding some realism back into the great fantasy known as "all children can learn." When you stop laughing at that, let the author's humor take you even further into the nightmare of public education. Wit is one of the first things to go when you enter this profession. Brown's possession of it is the first sign that this guy wasn't born to be a teacher but rather an observer and commentator. So be it, his astute observations bring out the best and the worst of finest prison system known to man, the New York Public Schools.

Dan Brown surpasses the similarly named charlatan by the second page of this tender recollection, so enough conversation about how one is not the other, eh? Anyone comparing the two (myself included) is drawing a tenuous, superficial connection. Simply put, it would be a discredit to this Mr. Brown to be associated with that one.

The Great Expectations School is a story from the intersection of reality and idealism. Mr. Brown acts as interlocutor between an impoverished section of society and those too caught up in disbelief or willful refusal to recognize it. Harsh conditions are much easier to stomach when they are limited to 30 seconds on the news.

Mr. Brown is brave to harrow the experience that he reports, but the more courageous act by far is to then report on it, in all of its bleak grandeur. This reader is very thankful that he did.

Dan Brown has written a book that can tear at your heart and yet still show humor. Having been a teacher myself, it is marvelous to read a book that really shows the inner workings of public education in today's society. There is a great sense of warmth, caring, honesty and wit. This should be a must read for every prospective teacher and anyone else involved with education. This book says it all.

The Great Expectations School really should be required reading for teachers entering, or considering, Teach for America, New York Teaching Fellows, or any other program that places teachers in challenging classroom environments with some of the country's toughest students. Dan Brown's story-telling makes this a simultaneously heart wrenching and entertaining read.
Mr. Brown cleary has a bright future in both education writing (as evidenced in his work on the Huffington Post) and in any other genre that he may tackle. His voice, compassion, insight, and sense of humor have created a book that is a welcome addition to the canon of important works on the great experiment currently going on in our urban schools.