Book Box: Dumbledores and Tiger Moms
Debate education through books, meet teachers both real and imaginary.
Dear Reader,
I am going back to school.
Next week, I start a semester of teaching business management students. In preparation, I have been scouring bookstores and our home bookshelves, finding inspiration from books on educators, both real and imaginary. To be and not to be.
Not to be cynical like school teacher Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal, or abusive like David Lurie, the 52-year-old professor in Disgrace by J M Coetzee. To be in To Sir With Love terrain - as Frank McCourt in Teacher Man, Yoda in Star Wars and Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter.
Back to school for me next week, and Teachers Day for us all this week, as we celebrate Dr Radhakrishnan’s birthday on September 5. To mark this occasion, here are 5 thought-provoking book genres, that debate opposing principles in education, and feature teachers both real and imaginary. These are books that call on neuroscience, behavioural science, psychology, statistics and stories to investigate what works and what doesn’t.
Book 1 of 5: One Exam to Rule Them
“A test-driven education causes damage to the physical and psychological well-being of students, parents, and teachers,” says Yong Zhao in What Works May Hurt. Zhao is wary of the Chinese gaokao, the university entrance exam that terrifies legions of Chinese school children. The book is scholarly, full of research resources and also easy to understand. It is interesting that Zhao takes a contrarian stand to Tiger Mom Amy Chua, bestselling banisher of children’s sleepovers and other indulgences, as set out in her Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
A good way to get to grips with these controversies, is to read Lucy Crehan's Clever Lands. The book begins on a sticky Shanghai morning, as the author stands outside the gates of a neighbourhood school. From here, she moves through schools in five countries. to find out about Finnish egalitarian education, Japanese collective education, Singapore’s severe competition, Chinese rote memorization, and Canadian diversity education.
For more on the philosophy of education, read Ken Robinson’s insightful Creative Schools and Jiddu Krishnamurthy’s stirring thesis Education and The Significance Of Life.
Book 2 of 5: The Neuroscience of Teaching
Understand how the human brain has evolved, if you want your students to absorb your lessons, says Barbara Oakley, in the very practical Uncommon Sense Teaching: Practical Insights into Brain Science to Help Students Learn. How to prevent student procrastination (break up the deliverables), how to make assessments effective, and making group projects more useful, are some pedagogical problems addressed here.
Also useful is The Art of Teaching by Gilbert Highet- with a section on teaching that all human beings must undertake. There are absorbing analyses of religious teachers and teachers in history as well as practical suggestions on how teachers can succeed.
Book 3 of 5: The World is Your Classroom
Teachers today use their ideas and research to address important public issues and The Public Professor is a good primer on how to do this. Many teachers make great writers; some of my favourite got-to books are by development economist professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, philosophy professor Michael Sandel, and happiness guru Raj Raghunathan, all of whom manage to meld expertise with accessibility.
Book 4 of 5: Teachers Student Stories
“On the first day of my teaching career, I was almost fired for eating the sandwich of a high school boy. On the second day, I was almost fired for mentioning the possibilities of friendship with a sheep,” says this Pulitzer prize-winning author in Teacher Man, a book about years of teaching public schools in New York. On the opposite coast, from the Los Angeles public school system, another teacher wrote the remarkable Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire - though it's depressing to know that its author has since been disgraced for inappropriate behaviour.
Unschooled children who do well in life are the subject of two bestselling memoirs - Educated and The Glass Castle - both are fascinating reads.
For more stories set on campuses, here are seven college stories every family should read.
Book 5 of 5: Children’s Books
Before there was Harry Potter, there was Ms Honey from Matilda, Ms Frizzle from The Magic School Bus series, guiding her grade school class through the solar system, the core of the earth, the human body and other impossible places. There was Ms Clavell from Madeleine, who “woke up in the middle of the night, because something was not quite right”. And now we have, in addition, a whole universe of imaginative instructors, from the dazzling Dumbledore to sphinx-like Severus Snape. If still in doubt about the momentous magic of a great teacher, look no further than Once Upon an Ordinary School Day.
In closing, at two ends of a spectrum - a play and a poem.
The Lesson by Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco, is a reminder of everything we must avoid, as we watch a professor drain the energetic curiosity of his pupil.
And the poem, is everything we must strive for, as a teacher disregards superstition and social taboos, to teach a student in Brahman, a story poem by Rabindranath Tagore. Here’s an extract, translated from its Bengali original, by Saumya Dey.
“The pupils talked, hearing the words
In hushed tones, many whispers.
As confused, restive bees in a hive they buzzed.
Bewildered, some laughed, some jeered hard,
Beholding the shameless insolence uncultured.
But rose Guru Gautama from his seat,
Spreading his arms, in an embrace did the boy he meet.
Said he, ‘A Brahman you are indeed,
‘Supreme among the twice-born is your worth,
‘For in truth’s line you have taken birth.”
On that philosophical note, it’s a wrap for this week. Who have been your favourite teachers, both real and imaginary? I’d love to hear, do write in.
Until next week then, Happy Reading!
Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com
The views expressed are personal
Continue reading with HT Premium Subscription
