Talking Back: What Students Know About Teaching, by the students of Leadership High School with 826 Valencia

(not sure where you can buy this online yet but I am linking to the 826 Valencia store site.)
The Leadership High School class of 2004 had an assignment from their English teacher, Kathleen Anne Large, to write an essay that answers the prompt: "If you were to give a talk to teachers about education in the United States, what would you say?"

The students presented their talks to an enthusiastic audience of one, their teacher. Wanting to have their views heard by a much larger group, Large then contacted 826 Valencia, which provides writing tutors from the community (which may soon include me) to help kids with their writing and other school assignments.
826 Valencia not only provided tutors to bring these essays to publication quality, they also worked with the class's editorial board to publish the essays into this book.

This really should be read by everyone dealing in any way with high school and middle school education: teachers, parents, principals, other students, and so on.

I've always been fascinated by teachers in general but my feeling is that as a "starring" classroom teacher, I could not hold the attention of the room as some of my teachers have (Mrs. Langemo, Mr. Watterson, Mrs. Opdahl, Mr. Knodle, Mr. Beauchman, Mr. Goffe, Mr. & Mrs. Hieb for example) - so if i am going to be a pretty mediocre teacher - better to spend time working one-on-one instead.

One of my favorite essays is "Real Lessons" by Krystal Maxwell. Her writing is crisp and she has a very individual voice. I could see her with a monthly column. Perhaps in "The Believer" alongside the Nick Hornby column. Here is an example:

"Teachers might believe that class time belongs to them and not us, but I beg to differ. Where I'm educated, cutting class is easy and people exercise it like a guilty party pleading the fifth. Prepare a lesson for every class period that's worthwhile to my classmates and me because counting the dots on the ceiling is getting pretty old."

Also her closing, direct to teachers:

"You are as much my hope for the future as I'm your social security payouts. We're not here to test your patience and fight you; we only do that when we're bored. Take care of us. Nurture that one-tenth of our minds you're able to reach without forcing it into overdrive, and I promise you you won't regret it."

This book also made me think of the poem "Inscriptions" by Adrienne Rich (from Dark Fields of the Republic). This poem has 6 parts and is probably my most frequently quoted poem ever as I keep using pieces of it in speeches and so on:
This is a partial quote:

When does a life end toward freedom? grasp its direction?
How do you know you're not circling in pale dreams, nostalgia,
stagnation
but entering that deep current malachite, colorado
requiring all your strength whenever found
your patience and your labor
desire pitted against desire's inversion
all your mind's fortitude?
Maybe through a teacher: someone with facts, with numbers
with poetry
who wrote on the board: IN EVERY GENERATION ACTION FREES OUR DREAMS.
Maybe a student: one mind unfurling like a redblack peony
quenched into percentile, dropout, stubbed out bud
--- Your journals Patricia: Douglas your poems: but the repetitive blows
on spines whose hope you were, on yours
to see that quenching and decide.
--- And now she turns her face brightly on the new morning in the new classroom
new in her beauty her skin her lashes her lovely body:
Race, class . . . all that . . . but isn't all that just history?
Aren't people bored with it all?