KevinKrautle.com
Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough, Narrated by Ax Norman (Read via Audible.com) I picked up this book after being intrigued by Geoffrey Canada’s interviews on numerous news programs and by the film Waiting for Superman. Granted this book was published more than a year ago but it really gave me a more in depth perspective of both what Canada’s goals were and his journey in accomplishing them. What really was eye opening to me from the book what the realization that the early childhood development is critical to how a person performs even as early as grade 3-6. The time between birth and grade 2-3 are really some critical years mainly due to the amount of basics that child needs to learn before they can build more complex neuropathways. It really troubled me to see that when Canada tried to get the Grade 6 class up to competency was a failure in many ways. To the point where he had to stop admitting 6th grade students for a few years. This book really opened my eyes to struggles of teaching kids, especially ones that have such rocky home lives. But it also gave me hope as Canada seems to have thought up a system to get a ‘safety net’ hung to prevent more catastrophic fall. This book is very long winded, and I did have to listen to the book an 2x speed. But I am glad I got through it to acquire via diffusion some of the lessons that Canada learned from. Two things I will not from the books. One the weight that Canada’s program placed on prepping for standardize testing. For some reason this just irks me. Mainly due probably my misguided concept of what a school is suppose to do, is to teach. No to teach for a test. The other thing is there was really nothing about seeing if there is a better way of teaching in this book. Take a look a Kahn Academy. I first found out about this different way of teaching when Salman Khan took the stage at TED. It really intrigued me that he might have a better way of approaching instructions. Instead of lecturing in class where students consume lectures at different paces. Make the lectures homework for students and then they can do the excursuses and instruction in class. I noticed this as I have been doing Microsoft training for their new LYNC UC Product. I would watch the TechEd videos multiple times and read the press books as well. By the time I went to a Course on the subject. Instead of giving a lecture, I engaged the professor with scenarios and detail questions lab work. Granted Doug did have to review some parts of his lecture material occasionally, but I definitely go a ton more out of his class by watching the equivalent of Kahn Videos first and reading the documentation multiple times (to push the information in to my brain) than getting introduced to it the first time by a professor in class. 8/10, would have been a 9 if I did not have to read the book in 2x speed.

Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America by Paul Tough, Narrated by Ax Norman (Read via Audible.com)

I picked up this book after being intrigued by Geoffrey Canada’s interviews on numerous news programs and by the film Waiting for Superman. Granted this book was published more than a year ago but it really gave me a more in depth perspective of both what Canada’s goals were and his journey in accomplishing them.

What really was eye opening to me from the book what the realization that the early childhood development is critical to how a person performs even as early as grade 3-6. The time between birth and grade 2-3 are really some critical years mainly due to the amount of basics that child needs to learn before they can build more complex neuropathways. It really troubled me to see that when Canada tried to get the Grade 6 class up to competency was a failure in many ways. To the point where he had to stop admitting 6th grade students for a few years.

This book really opened my eyes to struggles of teaching kids, especially ones that have such rocky home lives. But it also gave me hope as Canada seems to have thought up a system to get a ‘safety net’ hung to prevent more catastrophic fall.

This book is very long winded, and I did have to listen to the book an 2x speed. But I am glad I got through it to acquire via diffusion some of the lessons that Canada learned from.

Two things I will not from the books. One the weight that Canada’s program placed on prepping for standardize testing. For some reason this just irks me. Mainly due probably my misguided concept of what a school is suppose to do, is to teach. No to teach for a test.

The other thing is there was really nothing about seeing if there is a better way of teaching in this book. Take a look a Kahn Academy. I first found out about this different way of teaching when Salman Khan took the stage at TED. It really intrigued me that he might have a better way of approaching instructions. Instead of lecturing in class where students consume lectures at different paces. Make the lectures homework for students and then they can do the excursuses and instruction in class.

I noticed this as I have been doing Microsoft training for their new LYNC UC Product. I would watch the TechEd videos multiple times and read the press books as well. By the time I went to a Course on the subject. Instead of giving a lecture, I engaged the professor with scenarios and detail questions lab work. Granted Doug did have to review some parts of his lecture material occasionally, but I definitely go a ton more out of his class by watching the equivalent of Kahn Videos first and reading the documentation multiple times (to push the information in to my brain) than getting introduced to it the first time by a professor in class.

8/10, would have been a 9 if I did not have to read the book in 2x speed.

Posted 8 months ago