KIPP (KNowledge is Power Program) schools have recieved a lot of press recently. Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book "Outliers," devotes a whole chapter to prais of KIPP's methods. A few years ago, the book "No Excuses" offered KIPP schools as a prime eample of how poor and minority students can excel as well as those in the status quo. As a teacher, I have been long curious about KIPP schools, their backstory, and how they educate.
This is that story. In Work Hard, Be Nice, a journalist tells the story of two Teach for America teachers, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, who were dissatisfied with the public schools in which they taught. They created a small program (not a school, but a program within a school) based on the methods of some of their mentors. Students had longer days, more homework, "thinking skills," class, etc. AS the program experienced overwhelming success, a program became a school, which became two schools, which became a charter, which became a nationally recognized name in charter schools.
As a teacher, I cannot reccomend this book highly enough. Not only does it tell a very inspiring story, but it also offers some great advice to teachers, as seeing KIPP's methods gives us clues on how to harness some of these methods in our schools. We see Feinberg, Levin, and the host of teachers who joined them, experiment with different methods of discipline, instruction and motivation and get to see what worked and did not.
I reccomend this book not only to teachers, but those concerned with the difference between how education is and how it can be. There is even a discussion towards the end of the book (after KIPP's story has been well told) about the merits and demerits of KIPP methods and whether such methods could work in any but a charter school. Thus, this book would appeal not only to teachers, but those concerned with education policy.
It may even restore some faith in the possibility of education!
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Top reviews from other countries
- Jonathan D.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 21, 2020
Read it baby, read it.
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- A CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2015
A great story that anyone interested or working in education should ...
