Attention New Yorkers: Next Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m., Geoff Canada and I will be speaking at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. I’ll read a little from Whatever It Takes, and Geoff and I will both speak, answer questions and sign books. Please come on by and join us.
Archive for September, 2008
Barnes & Noble Next Monday
Monday, September 29th, 2008Brian Lehrer audio
Monday, September 29th, 2008Geoffrey Canada and I talking about education, the election and the Harlem Children’s Zone on The Brian Lehrer Show this morning on WNYC radio.
Brian Lehrer
Sunday, September 28th, 2008Tomorrow (Monday) morning at 11 a.m., Geoff Canada and I will be on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC here in New York. I think it’s on both AM 820 and FM 93.9. We’ll be part of the show’s “Thirty Issues in Thirty Days” series, talking about “the most pressing education needs in the US today.”
L.A. Times Review
Saturday, September 27th, 2008In Sunday’s L.A. Times, Erin Aubry Kaplan reviews Whatever It Takes:
Journalistically, Tough does a nice job of balancing theories and research on race, education and poverty with the unglamorous, on-the-ground fight to make Promise Academy and the whole Harlem Children’s Zone enterprise pull the neighborhood out of the gravity of its urban pathologies — to kick into a high enough gear for residents to achieve what Canada calls “escape velocity.”
Though much of “Whatever It Takes” focuses on strategy, it’s the acute awareness of the overwhelmingly black staff, students and parents of just what they’re up against that makes this book absorbing and frequently touching. Within that awareness are small but steady epiphanies that are the real core of Canada’s work but that simply can’t be measured by test scores: parents learning to regularly take their kids to museums, problems collectively solved in math class, story conclusions read aloud by second-graders.
Tavis Video
Saturday, September 27th, 2008Tavis Smiley’s PBS show has now posted video of the complete interview he did with me and Geoffrey Canada this week, as well as a transcript of our conversation.
McNally Jackson
Saturday, September 27th, 2008On Wednesday, October 29, at 7 p.m., I’ll be at McNally Jackson bookstore, at 52 Prince St. in New York, reading from Whatever It Takes and talking about the Harlem Children’s Zone with Sharon Jarvis, Senior Reference Librarian at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The evening is hosted by The Desk Set, a group of young librarians and archivists described in the New York Times as “a hipper crowd of shushers.”
This American Life
Thursday, September 25th, 2008Tavis
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
Geoff Canada and I will be on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS on Friday. You’ll note I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands.
Check local listings for times and channels.
A Question in Macon
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008In the Macon, Georgia, Telegraph, columnist Catherine Meeks writes about “Whatever It Takes” and asks,
Are we willing to do whatever it takes? This is the major question that has to be answered. Are we willing to change our ways of thinking and acting so that our massive resources can be used more wisely? Can we open our hearts, churches, homes or whatever else needs to be opened to help support the needs of the children, all of the children regardless of their race and class?
Tell Me More
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008Geoff Canada and I are on Michel Martin’s NPR show “Tell Me More” today. Internet audio is up now here. On her blog, Ms. Martin talks about her decision not to preempt us.