New Books that Excite Us Right Now

Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty
By Professor Paul Reville, founder of the Education Redesign Lab, and Elaine Weiss
(HARVARD EDUCATION PRESS)

In this new book, Paul Reville and Elaine Weiss make the case for radically changing the design of schools and communities to provide a “pipeline of supports, from cradles to career” for all children, not just the “lucky minority.” The bulk of the book is a series of profiles of 12 diverse communities in 12 states trying to make these changes, and includes strategies that have worked and challenges still faced.

Right Where We Belong: How Refugee Teachers and Students Are Changing the Future of Education
By Associate Professor Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Ed.D.’09
(HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS)

When it comes to improving schooling for the 13 million refugee children around the world, Sarah Dryden-Peterson says that policymakers, activists, and educators can learn a lot by talking directly with refugee children and their teachers who have found ways to experiment with learning during crisis, especially when international relief groups and government agencies have their hands tied or hit a roadblock.

Listen to an EdCast with Dryden-Peterson recorded in April 2022 about her work.

The Voices of the the Trees
By Professor Fernando Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’88, and Elisa Guerra, Ed.M.’21
(PEARSON)

At the end of February, with snow still on the ground in Cambridge but with the hint of spring around the corner, Professor Fernando Reimers and Elisa Guerra, a writer from Mexico and a finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, published The Voices of the Trees. Framed around six stories set in different countries and locations — a park, a school — this illustrated book teaches children around the world about topics such as social solidarity, responsibility, and the importance of being global citizens.

Sister Resisters: Mentoring Black Women on Campus
By Janie Victoria Ward, Ed.M.'81, Ed.D.'86, and Tracy Robinson-Wood, Ed.M.'83, Ed.D.'88
(HARVARD EDUCATION PRESS)

In Sister Resisters, Janie Victoria Ward and Tracy Robinson-Wood present a topic they have been studying for decades: the ways Black college students are underserved, in part because their college mentors — including faculty, coaches, and advisers — don’t always have the skills needed to truly mentor them. These skills go beyond just taking a mentee out to lunch or checking in on classes. They range from having a better sense of African American history to understanding what it means to contend with gendered racism.

Mercy
By Bill Littlefield, Ed.M.’73
(BLACK ROSE WRITING)

In this, Bill Littlefield’s third novel (he has written several other books, including Only a Game, the namesake of the NPR show he hosted for 25 years, and Champions: Stories of Ten Remarkable Athletes), the focus is on overlapping stories of neighbors in a suburban community who are all seeking mercy in one form or another. As author Gish Jen writes about Mercy, “This book has much to tell us about life, and what it’s really like. Written by a man who knows about a lot more than baseball, it is a wonder and a pleasure.”

Read Littlefield’s essay on teaching incarcerated students.

The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be
By Professor Howard Gardner and Wendy Fischman, project director, Project Zero
(MIT PRESS)

Based on years of research plus more than 2,000 interviews with individuals (mostly students, but also faculty, administrators, parents, and young alumni) at colleges across the United States, Howard Gardner and Wendy Fischman present a snapshot of the college experience, what works and what doesn’t at various schools (and across the higher education world in general), and why more colleges and universities need to get back to focusing sharply on their unique mission: to develop minds to the fullest.

Watch an Askwith Education Forum featuring Gardner and Fischman.