Ilana Garon is an English teacher at a public high school in the Bronx, New York, and holds master’s degrees in both secondary English education and fine arts. Throughout the past ten years, she has taught every level of high school English, from ESL to AP, and even math in emergency situations. She also writes about education issues for Dissent Magazine, Huffington Post, and Education Week. Ilana lives in New York City.
From Publishers Weekly
Part memoir and part sociology study on the lives of teenagers,
Garon reflects on her first four years teaching at a public high
school in the Bronx. The title is taken from a student's suggestion
for a research topic. Amidst her Garon finds herself sobering up a
smart but troubled student when he comes to class drunk, helping a
young girl in an abusive co-dependent relationship, and grappling
with the "polite way to ask someone if they are in a gang." She
profiles the troublemakers like the arrogant Kayron who alternates
between tormenting and admiring Garon, along with the hard-luck
cases like Felicia, a tremendously smart and wildly charismatic
student who is self-mutilating. Then there are the more uplifting
stories like Callum, the bright but apathetic student Garon forms a
strong bond with, staying in touch through his college years and
helping him find work as a journalist. As Garon writes in her
introduction, this book is not about the "myth of the hero
teacher'" changing the lives of inner city kids, though she does do
that, nor is it "a scathing indictment" of the education system. It
is that refreshing lack of agenda and Garon's self-awareness that
makes this book charming and raw in its honesty. (Sept.)
Review
Ilana Garon writes with radical honesty and bountiful compassion
about her experience as a teacher in a Bronx high schooland about
the students she came to know. Anyone who thinks that what these
students need is more tests should be required to read this book.
In fact, we all need to go to school with Ilana Garon.” (Michael
Walzer, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study)
This irresistible, passionate, hilariously funny look at a young
teacher and her surprisingly lovable students lights up the
landscape of recent writing about American education.” (Susan
Cheever)
Ilana Garon starts by assuring readers this is not just another
hero-teacher book, and this talented writer makes good on her
promise. With striking honesty and wit, she tells a story about
learning to embrace imperfection: her school’s, her students’, the
system’s, and mostly her own. In doing so, she captures the essence
of a teacher’s journeyfrom naive beginnings to dashed hopes to
ultimately hard-earned wisdom. The best part is that, all along,
it’s a joy to read.” (Liana Heitin, associate editor of Education
Week Teacher)
Ilana Garon’s wise and vivid narrative about her experiences in a
working-class high school cuts through all the talk about 'reform'
to reveal what it really means to be a good teacher. This is a book
that anyone who cares about American education should read.”
(Michael Kazin, editor of Dissent Magazine and professor of
history, Georgetown University)
In her beautifully written Why Do Only White People Get Abducted
By Aliens?, Ilana Garon brings us inside the New York City public
school system by taking us inside the heads and hearts of her
pupils. The result is a riveting, firsthand account of what
teachers, trying to help our most at-risk students, can do to make
their students’ lives better. Not since Jonathan Kozol’s 1967
classic, Death at an Early Age have we had such an important report
on the day-to-day workings of an urban school.” (Nicolaus Mills,
Sarah Lawrence College, author of The Triumph of Meanness:
America’s War Against Its Better Self)
With honesty and refreshing straightforwardness, Garon delivers
true stories of her time spent in high school classrooms in the
Bronx. . . . A gritty and candid exposé of inner-city teaching.”
(Kirkus Reviews)
Ilana Garon does the rare and elegant work of marrying non-fiction
and storytelling in a highly readable and uniquely honest book.
Without pretension or agenda, Why Do Only White People Get Abducted
by Aliens? reveals the modern classroom from all angles from the
desks to the chalkboards to the windows outside. Her characters and
experiences are real and graciously dispose of moth-eaten
stereotypes with humility and humor. This is an important book, not
just because its stories interlock and lend us unvarnished insight,
but because of the way Garon deftly and graciously handles such
difficult material.” (Adam Chandler, staff writer, Tablet
Magazine)
From Publishers Weekly
Part memoir and part sociology study on the lives of teenagers,
Garon reflects on her first four years teaching at a public high
school in the Bronx. The title is taken from a student's suggestion
for a research topic. Amidst her Garon finds herself sobering up a
smart but troubled student when he comes to class drunk, helping a
young girl in an abusive co-dependent relationship, and grappling
with the "polite way to ask someone if they are in a gang." She
profiles the troublemakers like the arrogant Kayron who alternates
between tormenting and admiring Garon, along with the hard-luck
cases like Felicia, a tremendously smart and wildly charismatic
student who is self-mutilating. Then there are the more uplifting
stories like Callum, the bright but apathetic student Garon forms a
strong bond with, staying in touch through his college years and
helping him find work as a journalist. As Garon writes in her
introduction, this book is not about the "myth of the hero
teacher'" changing the lives of inner city kids, though she does do
that, nor is it "a scathing indictment" of the education system. It
is that refreshing lack of agenda and Garon's self-awareness that
makes this book charming and raw in its honesty. (Sept.)
Review
Ilana Garon writes with radical honesty and bountiful compassion
about her experience as a teacher in a Bronx high schooland about
the students she came to know. Anyone who thinks that what these
students need is more tests should be required to read this book.
In fact, we all need to go to school with Ilana Garon.” (Michael
Walzer, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study)
This irresistible, passionate, hilariously funny look at a young
teacher and her surprisingly lovable students lights up the
landscape of recent writing about American education.” (Susan
Cheever)
Ilana Garon starts by assuring readers this is not just another
hero-teacher book, and this talented writer makes good on her
promise. With striking honesty and wit, she tells a story about
learning to embrace imperfection: her school’s, her students’, the
system’s, and mostly her own. In doing so, she captures the essence
of a teacher’s journeyfrom naive beginnings to dashed hopes to
ultimately hard-earned wisdom. The best part is that, all along,
it’s a joy to read.” (Liana Heitin, associate editor of Education
Week Teacher)
Ilana Garon’s wise and vivid narrative about her experiences in a
working-class high school cuts through all the talk about 'reform'
to reveal what it really means to be a good teacher. This is a book
that anyone who cares about American education should read.”
(Michael Kazin, editor of Dissent Magazine and professor of
history, Georgetown University)
In her beautifully written Why Do Only White People Get Abducted
By Aliens?, Ilana Garon brings us inside the New York City public
school system by taking us inside the heads and hearts of her
pupils. The result is a riveting, firsthand account of what
teachers, trying to help our most at-risk students, can do to make
their students’ lives better. Not since Jonathan Kozol’s 1967
classic, Death at an Early Age have we had such an important report
on the day-to-day workings of an urban school.” (Nicolaus Mills,
Sarah Lawrence College, author of The Triumph of Meanness:
America’s War Against Its Better Self)
With honesty and refreshing straightforwardness, Garon delivers
true stories of her time spent in high school classrooms in the
Bronx. . . . A gritty and candid exposé of inner-city teaching.”
(Kirkus Reviews)
Ilana Garon does the rare and elegant work of marrying non-fiction
and storytelling in a highly readable and uniquely honest book.
Without pretension or agenda, Why Do Only White People Get Abducted
by Aliens? reveals the modern classroom from all angles from the
desks to the chalkboards to the windows outside. Her characters and
experiences are real and graciously dispose of moth-eaten
stereotypes with humility and humor. This is an important book, not
just because its stories interlock and lend us unvarnished insight,
but because of the way Garon deftly and graciously handles such
difficult material.” (Adam Chandler, staff writer, Tablet Magazine)
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