Examines major myths informing American education and explores how educators can better serve students, increase college retention rates, and develop alternatives to college that don't disadvantage students on the basis of race or income.
Linda F. Nathan is the first executive director of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship and has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for fifteen years. Dr. Nathan served as founding headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy (BAA), Boston's only public high school for the visual and performing arts. She also founded and directed the Center for Arts in Education, an arm of BAA that serves the outreach, professional development, and arts advocacy needs of the school. Dr. Nathan was the codirector of Fenway High School for fourteen years and founded two nonprofit organizations- El Pueblo Nuevo (arts and youth development) and the Center for Collaborative Education (school reform issues). She is also the cofounder of the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership and serves on numerous nonprofit boards both locally and nationally. Nathan is the author of The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test.
“It’s a marvelous book, and badly needed at this time. Drawing on
the powerful stories of children at the Boston Arts Academy, Linda
Nathan bravely confronts the widely circulated myth that children
who grow up in poverty can overcome inequity and every other
daunting obstacle they face if they just ‘believe,’ ‘persevere,’
‘work like hell,’ and show sufficient ‘grit.’ Many of these
students do prevail, but Nathan makes it clear that ‘grit’ is not
enough and that our adherence to this appeasing myth is letting a
divided and bitterly unequal social order off the hook.”
—Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities: Children in
America’s Schools
“Supporting students throughout college is as important as
supporting them in high school—especially as students confront
challenges connected to race and class. Linda Nathan deftly
describes the kind of team effort that is required of educators in
order to ensure student success.”
—Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation
“Storytelling can serve as a powerful tool for truth telling. Linda
Nathan’s When Grit Isn’t Enough is truth telling at its best! Drawn
on over thirty years of teaching and leading in public education
settings, Linda’s stories show us, in no uncertain terms, how five
long-held assumptions about American education are hurting
thousands of talented urban students. Through stories, Linda
exposes us to painful truths and provides us with practical,
implementable, and replicable solutions that can reverse these
long-standing false assumptions. Most of all, she leaves us with
hope, inspiration, and direction.”
—Jackie Jenkins-Scott, president emeritus, Wheelock College,
Boston
“In When Grit Isn’t Enough, veteran educator Linda Nathan gives the
lie to five popular but unproven beliefs about education that do
little to improve schooling but instead blame the victims of poor
and unequal schooling. This is a courageous book, one that
challenges all of us, educators and non-educators alike, to do
better for our most vulnerable students.”
—Sonia Nieto, professor emerita of Language, Literacy, and Culture,
College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Insightful, revealing, and at times heart-wrenching, this book is
an invaluable resource for those who hope to use education to
transform the lives of our most vulnerable youth.”
—Pedro A. Noguera, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Education, UCLA
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
“When Grit Isn’t Enough does a brilliant job of dismembering the
prevailing fallacies about what makes for student success in higher
education. Seamlessly weaving together stories and analysis,
veteran educator Linda Nathan shows how, for poor, minority, and
first-gen students, money (more precisely, the lack of money) and
race do matter, and how it’s fatuous to tell students on the cusp
that, to make it, all they have to do is buckle down. When Grit
Isn’t Enough is both a powerful indictment of higher education and
a blueprint for reform. If you read one book on education this
season, make it this one.”
—David L. Kirp, Professor of the Graduate School, University of
California at Berkeley, and contributing writer, New York Times
“In When Grit Isn’t Enough, Linda Nathan challenges deeply held
beliefs like ‘race and money don’t matter,’ and ‘if you just
believe in yourself, then your college dreams will come true.’
Through personal stories of alums of Nathan’s school, along with
extensive research, she argues that these assumptions can do harm.
In this very readable book, she asks educators to confront the
ethics of promoting these assumptions when other options, like
high-quality career and technical education, can launch a
low-income young person into a productive and enriched adulthood. A
brave, honest, and optimistic book.”
—Nancy Hoffman, cofounder, Pathways to Prosperity Network, and
senior advisor, Jobs for the Future
“In an age where we need courage far more than courtesy, Linda
Nathan uses this book to do some much needed truth-telling about
schooling today. The American Dream that hard work will pay off is
now a fallacy, and she shows us how and why.”
—Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy and
Sociology at Temple University and author of Paying the Price:
College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American
Dream
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