Kay McSpadden: Notes from a Classroom

As a culture, we often root for the underdog. We love to see teachers motivate students whose every word and gesture reek of defiance. After the initial, yet brief, breaking-in period, movie star teachers cleverly inspire every student to overcome years of poverty and intellectual neglect and to out-achieve their privileged, suburban counterparts. In her compilation of essays, Notes from a Classroom, Kay McSpadden has teaching days that fit the Hollywood bill, and days that would wind up on the editing room floor. She lets us in on it all, thus inspiring, frustrating, motivating, captivating, challenging and teaching us.

Key Quotations

• But this is the real world, and I don't know why some students from horrible backgrounds and with overwhelming odds against them prevail and why others crumble. If I did, then I might be less at a loss for what to do for the angry girls and boys that come into my classroom.
• When they read their poems to the class, I learn again that I love teaching. It can be a hard lesson to hold on to some days. But it is the lesson that keeps me steady, that sends me back into the classroom every year.
• Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - I am a hard headed skeptic who has always preferred testing things for myself, so I didn't quit after that very first difficult year. I did indeed have disrespectful, indifferent students, but I also had many more students who were willing to learn and willing to teach me how to teach them. Teaching was very hard, but it was also great fun.

Kay McSpadden writes op-ed columns for the Charlotte Observer and has been teaching high school English in rural South Carolina for 30 years.

Review: Beth Donofrio, September 16th 2007.

Kishore Mahbubani: Can Asians Think?

"Can Asians Think?” asks Mahbubani. If they can, what were they doing during the European Renaissance and the Enlightenment? Not much, it seems. But now, following Japan's example, a new self-confidence is emerging as Asians consider how their societies have developed in recent years. American fashions prevail amongst the poor, but educated Asians are turning to their own cultures for identity and inspiration. Meanwhile, western democracies are disengaging from the Third World, despite the need for engagement, if only to dampen mass immigration into Europe. Western nations often demand democratisation when they should first emphasise economic development and globalization.

Key Quotations

• The most painful thing that happened to Asia was not the physical but the mental colonization. Many Asians… began to believe that Asians were inferior to the Europeans. Only this could explain how a few thousand British could control a few hundred million people in South Asia.
• Educational excellence is an essential prerequisite for cultural confidence. To put it plainly, many Asians have realized that their minds are not inferior. Most Westerners cannot appreciate the change, because they can never directly feel the sense of inferiority many Asians experienced until recently. (p. 24)

• In the eyes of the North African population, the Mediterranean, which once divided civilizations, has become a mere pond. What human being would not cross a pond if thereby he could improve his livelihood?

Kishore Mahbubani

• Mahbubani.net - Kishore Mahbubani's official website.
  
• Wikipedia's Mahbubani page.
  
• Interview with KM in the May/June 2007 issue of International Educator magazine.
• Chiron the Centaur: Mahbubani review.