SOUTHSIDE BOOK REVIEW

SOUTHSIDE  BOOK  REVIEWS

Reviews Of Books Recently Written By Southside Authors
Compiled by:  Forrest W. Schultz   770-583-3258   schultz_forrest@yahoo.com
April 26, 2012


 Young Teacher Speaks Out on Education Today

A review of

J. Speeks (pseud.) The Underground Philosophy of Education (Kobalt Books, 2011)
                              $15.00   128 pp   ISBN-10: 0982033079   ISBN-13: 978-0982033074

Reviewer:  Forrest Schultz

     Nigel L.Walker, a young black male public school tacher, using the pseudonym "Speeks", speaks out on today's problems in public schools, problems he has experienced both as a student and now as a teacher.  These problems are not new, but they need to be continually brought up because there are continually new people coming along who need to know them.  It is also good to get fresh restatements of these problems from various viewpoints.  The term "underground" which he uses can be misleading because, frankly, almost all the analyses and suggestions the author makes are simply common sense, but then, there has always been a lot of stuff done in the schools in violation of common sense!

     The term "underground" may possibly also connote radical, but this is clearly not the case here because all the problems dealt with, while important, are surficial ones, which do not deal with the root cause, which is the failure to recognize that genuine education only occurs when a person really wants to learn, and when he sees that all subjects are inherently interesting.  Walker concludes by saying that the teacher should "instill" a desire to learn, which is not true, because everyone has a desire to learn until it is smothered by things such as textbooks which make it look like the subjects, such as physics and history, are boring and that the teacher's job is to MAKE them interesting.  The teacher's job is to SHOW that everything is interesting.  Many other radical changes are needed which are not dealt with here, such as the need to make education voluntary, not compulsory.

     What Walker does deal with, though, is well done and interesting.  His remarks on students supposing teachers are some special kind of beings is reminiscent of a comment I heard saying the same thing about the nuns teaching in parochial schools -- this student thought God dropped them down from Heaven and all they did was teach. And there is some tough stuff which needs to be noted in regard to students coming from neighborhoods which are difficult to live in, something he himself experienced as a child.  

     There are also good comments on how disruptive students misuse their intelligence -- the problem is not lack of intelligence, but using it for the wrong purposes.  And remarks on how misguided parents can disrupt schools. And so on.

     As a discussion of these kinds of things, the book is good and is recommended.

     Information is available on the author's blog http://nigellwalker.blogspot.com.